Okay, we are gonna get started.
We are gonna get started. Are we good to go in terms of streaming from
tech support?
We are good. Okay.
Good morning, everybody. The Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight will now
come to order. We have two items on today's agenda.
First, the appointment of David Glockner as Inspector General.
Second, a substitute ordinance modifying various election related
provisions known as the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr.
Fair Access to Democracy Ordinance.
We will begin with a roll call to establish quorum.
Please note that your yes or present response will be deemed a yes vote
when this quorum call is used for a reference vote for later items.
Chair Martin is present. Vice Chair Hadden, we'll get to you
shortly. Alderwoman Lee.
Alderman O'Shea. Alderwoman Taylor.
Alderwoman Tabaras. Alderman Taliaferro.
Alderman Waguespack. Alderman Sposato. Alderwoman Nugent.
Alderman Vasquez.
Alderman Riley. Alderman Lawson.
Great.
No committee members at the moment, but I think we might be joined by some later.
We have a quorum. Oh,
we
have Alderwoman Hadden and Taylor and Riley have
requested remote participation in this committee meeting under Rule 59
due to a qualifying event. Is there a motion to allow these three alders to
adjoin? Alderman Vasquez so moves.
All those in favor signify by saying "Aye." Aye. All those opposed?
In the opinion of the chairs, the ayes have it.
Alderwomen Hadden, Taylor, and Alderman Riley
are allowed to attend today's committee meeting remotely.
At this time, we will begin public comment,
set for 30 minutes. Out of respect for everyone's time, each speaker is limited to
three minutes. We have two people signed up for public comment.
First Jessica Jackson and then Zoe Lee. Ms. Jackson?
Next door. Okay, Ms. Lee?
Not here. Okay. Alderman O'Shea is here and
will be counted towards quorum. Good morning.
We received written comments and four
letters of support. Those have been shared with all of you
electronically via email.
Our first order of business is the Rule 45 report for April
2026, which was distributed to the committee via email.
Can I have a motion to approve that?
Alderman Vasquez so moves. All those in favor say "Aye." Aye. All those opposed?
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it.
We-
Mr. Chairman, could I make a point of order, please?
Please.
Since it appears to be two committee meetings going on at the same
time, I'd like to move that we move the public comment section so that
those that want to participate in public comment can come and participate,
given the fact that we have two committee meetings going on.
Does anyone have a-- Oh,
Ms. Jackson, I see you. Please go ahead. I did not see you come in.
I am comfortable with that.
I think now would be a good time, Ms.
Jackson, if you would like to...
called my
name, standing up.
Okay. Yeah, and-
No.
Thank you.
Okay.
Shouldn't have two meetings at the same time.
I'll be back to exercise my First Amendment right.
Thank you, Alderman Taliaferro. I'll be back.
Understood.
Chair, I move that we move the public comment section to a later
portion of the meeting to give those an opportunity that wish to
speak
publicly at this given meeting pursuant to the Open Meetings Act, that
they be given an opportunity to do so.
Okay, seeing no objections, we will
see when these two public commenters come in.
I will give them the opportunity to provide public comment either after Mr.
Glockner's appointment is taken up or after the Jesse Jackson ordinance
is taken up if they are available.We will now
proceed with the appointment of David Glockner as Inspector General.
The committee has received this appointment as a direct introduction from Mayor
Johnson. I'd like to thank Mr. Glockner for accepting this appointment and
being here today. I will turn it over to you now, sir, for your opening
remarks.
Great. So thank you very much, Chair Martin.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here today.
And I'd like to begin by thanking Mayor Johnson for his appointment and each of
you for making the time to participate in today's hearing.
I've also had the opportunity over the last few weeks to speak with many of you,
as well as council members not on the committee.
And I'm grateful for the time that you've taken in those conversations, the
insights you've shared, and for your encouragement.
I'd like to take a few minutes at the beginning of this morning's hearing to talk
about what brings me here and how I plan to lead the Inspector
General's office if the City Council approves my appointment.
Today's hearing is an important conversation.
The office of the Inspector General plays a critical role for Chicago
and its residents. It protects against misconduct and
waste through its investigations and audits,
and by providing transparency,
excuse me, and accountability, it promotes the public trust-
I'm sorry to interrupt, sir. Would you mind moving the microphone just a little bit
closer to your mouth?
Sure.
Thank you.
It protects against misconduct and waste through its investigations and
audits,
and by providing transparency and accountability, it promotes
the public trust necessary for government to deliver on its
potential. The OIG's audit work also
serves as an important resource for the city's elected leaders
and the mayor's administrative team.
By providing thorough and objective analyses of aspects of city
government that aren't working as well as they could, and setting out alternative
approaches for consideration, the OIG empowers better
decisions by the city's policymakers.
In short, a well-functioning OIG enables a better Chicago for
all its residents.
Much of my life and career has helped lead me to this point.
I've lived and worked in Chicago for more than 40 years.
I met my wife, and we raised our two daughters here, where they attended public
schools. My father grew up in Chicago, as did his
father.
I had the good fortune to be hired into the Chicago US Attorney's
office early in my career.
Over my 24 years there, both as a line prosecutor and for
nearly a dozen years as chief of the criminal division, I learned a
tremendous amount about this city,
both the good and the not-so-good,
by working on and overseeing a wide range of investigations
concerning public corruption, police misconduct, organized
crime, violent crime, and fraud.
As regional director for the Chicago office of the Securities and Exchange
Commission, my work included a focus on public finance and the
integrity of municipal bond offerings.
I also learned strategies for prioritizing the SEC's limited
resources for oversight of security industry participants
to ensure that those resources were used to address the most significant
risks to investors and markets.
And most recently at Exelon, I led the company's compliance and ethics
internal audit and enterprise risk functions in the wake of a bribery
scandal.
We rebuilt the company's compliance and ethics program, we refocused its
internal audit program
to spend more time on issues of critical importance to the
company and strengthen partnerships with the business owners of the
processes we audited. And we redesigned the company's
enterprise risk program to more effectively identify our major
risks.
All these experiences have helped prepare me to lead the office of Inspector
General.
I will have the benefit of building on the work of my predecessors, most
recently Inspector General Witzberg, and inheriting an office
that has broad authority,
strong protections for its independence,
and stable resources. Thanks to work over the years by multiple
mayors and the City Council, as well as past inspector generals.
But every leadership transition is an opportunity for a fresh discussion of
priorities to ensure that the OIG's work evolves with the city's
changing needs. With that in mind, I'd like to outline two
goals that will shape at least my early work with the
office. The first is to ensure that the
OIG's audit work is clearly focused on the areas that
matter most for the effective, equitable, and efficient delivery
of city services.
As a general matter, a well-designed audit plan should reflect an
organization's most significant risks.
For the city, the importance of those risks can be described in a variety of
ways. For example, through their financial impact, through
considerations of equity, and through the number of people they affect and the
importance of a program or service to people's lives.
I think there is an opportunity to ensure that the OIG's audit work is
more consistently focused on topics where the potential for
impact and value for policymakers is greatest.
The second goal is to ensure the timeliness of the OIG's work in both
its investigations and its audits.
While investigations and audits must be thorough, they lose value and
impact when they take longer than necessary.
Delays in reporting on waste and inefficiencies prolong the time
required to address problems and create risk that by the time a
report is issued, its observations and recommendations may be out of
date.
And delays in resolving investigations can have a variety of
consequences. These include delays in addressing problematic
conduct for individuals who are
unfairly accused, extended clouds over their heads,
and for those who report concerns but don't see action,
a loss of confidence in the system.
I will seek to reduce both the number of aged investigations and the time
required to complete the OIG's
audits.I also want to talk briefly about three
principles that will guide my work as inspector general.
The first is independence. The ability to work and make
judgments independent of political and outside
influences is essential to the OIG's effectiveness
and has been a hallmark of its work to date.
Mayor Johnson has assured me of his commitment to an independent and
effective inspector general's office, and many of you have made
similar comments.
I value those comments and those assurances, and in
return, my commitment to you is that while I will act
independently, I will use that independence
constructively, recognizing, and when appropriate,
working in partnership to achieve our shared goal of a better
Chicago.
The second principle is objectivity.
To be effective and credible, the OIG needs to come to each
investigation and audit with an open mind and no
agenda beyond getting the facts right.
In doing our work, we must gather the relevant facts through processes that are
reliable and fair and draw conclusions supported by
those facts.
With our audits, we also must, whenever possible, work
in partnership with the owners of the processes we're auditing to
find solutions for the challenges we've identified,
prioritizing problem-solving over finger-pointing.
And then finally, accountability.
To be credible, the OIG needs to hold itself to the same
standards of conduct, effectiveness, and transparency that we
demand of others. This means being transparent about where and
how we use our resources, being good stewards of taxpayer
funds, inviting feedback and even challenges
to the quality
and value of our work, and acknowledging our mistakes.
Accountability makes every organization stronger.
I'm excited about the work ahead. While Chicago faces many challenges,
we have even more opportunities. The nature of the inspector general's
role is that the news that I will have to share will not always be
good.
Sometimes it will be uncomfortable,
and sometimes it will even prompt disagreement.
But by objectively and fairly identifying places where we can do
better, providing accountability, and enabling more
informed decisions by the city's policymakers, the OIG
will play its part in our collective effort to build a better Chicago.
I look forward to leading the OIG in that work and to working
constructively with all of you and with stakeholders across the
city. Thank you, and I welcome your questions.
Thank you, Mr. Glockner. We appreciate it.
I know we have three people signed up for public comment who were not able to be
here at the beginning of public comment when the zoning committee was underway.
I wanted you all to know that there will be an opportunity for public comment after
discussion and a vote on Mr. Glockner's proposal before we
take up the Jesse Jackson Sr. ordinance.
We'll open up questions for committee members now on the appointment.
Alderman Waguespack.
Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Glockner,
good talking to you. Just getting a brief introduction to
how you think about this job and your experiences in the
past. Just a couple of questions, more hypotheticals
on how you would approach things. So over the years, we've had
issues with sister agencies and MOUs or memorandums of
understanding, trying to get our sister agencies to come into compliance
with
different aspects of governing, ethics violations.
We had the sexual assault scandals at the Park District that
took forever for them to essentially come to grips
with the problems that they had, despite pressure from our
side to say, "Get these things done."
How would you address some of these sister agency issues?
And for instance, right now, we're dealing with sister agency
employees refusing to pay their debts to the city,
leading to tens of millions of dollars in our
budget shortfalls that are not being enforced by
the city or by the sister agencies.
So I think I'm not familiar with the
details of the structure of the relationships and authority with the
sister agencies. I do think that there are
opportunities to ensure that the
city's interests are well and forcefully
communicated to the sister agencies, that
there may be opportunities to monitor and
report on progress that's being made.
There also may, in the longer term, be
opportunities to better coordinate
oversight work, the sort
of inspector general type work
with some of these agencies that have their own IGs.
Chicago has a
number of IGs,
and I think they're dealing, in some instances,
with the same contractors, with many of the same challenges.
And I think ensuring that there is strong coordination
there
would be helpful.
Okay. Yeah, I think that's something that we've kind of lacked in the past, where
if you didn't have a strong IG at one of the sister agencies or
a lack of leadership, either on the fifth floor
forcing that issue,
especially when you have mayors who appoint...
those officials at those other agencies, then I just see a
lack of follow-through on some of these issues.
But I think in the audit section, or at least the
memorandum of understanding or
working together with those other IGs and being more forceful
from our end would be helpful.
Thank you.
Second question is,
one of the issues that we've seen over the last few years has been an increase
in extremism or acts of violence,
not just by people looking to make change in government,
but by officials within government, in particular
in the city and sister agencies,
or
actors that are elected on the ballot here in
Chicago.
What's your sense of how to handle this misconduct,
this perpetration of violence,
and tactics that are designed to sow fear within elected
officials and push them back in terms of what they would
like to do for their constituents?
And these are instances that have been reported
in city government,
and not acted on, I think, in a way that people had the
expectation of.
So I think with issues like that, it's important to
separate the conduct from the motives and the
rhetoric surrounding the conduct.
Conduct is actionable,
and
conduct that is problematic generally can be viewed sort of through the
lens of
existing
standards of conduct.
When you start looking at motives behind it
or
things that are more pure speech,
you get into much slipperier
territory with respect to the First Amendment.
My experience, we had versions of this issue
at
Exelon, for example, where we would have employees
who would
speak and sometimes act in ways that were
inconsistent with the company's code of conduct.
And what we found was that we really needed to look at each of
those on a case-by-case basis, and look
at the conduct,
separate the conduct from the protected rhetoric,
and then try to make principled and consistent
findings and recommendations about how to proceed.
That consistency is useful, because by
being consistent, you communicate
to actors sort of where the lines
are.
And I think that transparency and the
visibility of the lines of enforcement and
conduct is helpful.
Yeah. I would just say that I like that approach.
Obviously, there is protected speech and protected conduct.
There's been great inconsistency in the way enforcement
has been implied here in the city, and we do have
human resource guidelines, we have ethics guidelines, and
there are certain bodies that are elected
that do not have to adhere to those HR
and ethics guidelines, as been stated.
So I think it's something to... I would just say that I think you need
to look into
to find that consistency so that across the board,
the standards are the same for any elected official,
or appointed official, frankly, within city
government and within those sister city agencies as well.
So, it's just something that has been cropping up quite a
bit over the last few years, and I think it behooves the inspector general to be
consistent and
forceful in making sure that the guidelines that we are
required to adhere to are definitely followed.
So
thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you. Alderman Lawson.
Thank you, Chair. Good morning.
I appreciate our conversation earlier, I think it was last week.
And you had a lot of good insights. I think I told you, you have a great resume,
and we're lucky to have you. I'll say that on the record here today.
I wanted just to follow up, when you talked about timeliness this morning, I think
there was a very high-profile case where
the OIG's office recommended firing of a mayoral staffer two
years after the incident. Two years.
Clearly, the timing was a problem for everyone.
But realistically,
there've been a lot of timing conversations.
The PPP fraud, which is still ongoing, and people who are
still working for us that have active cases, right?
That's three or four years old now.
In your opinion or goal, what would be a
targetable or realistic timeframe to initiate an
action and bring it to resolution, understanding that complexities are going
to be different for either one. But I heard PPP was a paper case.
It's just sitting there. There's no new evidence, yet there's nothing being done on
it.
So I don't think I'm in a position
to answer that until I'm in the door and have a
chance to look at the case inventory and understand
what
the issues have been. But I can say
that in
really at least three of my roles with the
US Attorney's office, with the SEC, and at Exelon,
an important part of my focus was trying to ensure that
we moved more quicklyWith investigations.
You don't want to, you can't sacrifice
accuracy to be quick, but there are things that you
can do in terms of
making sure that there is meaningful supervisory oversight
of investigations. You can provide
guidance and assurance to investigators that,
yes, you have actually done enough to reach a conclusion here.
Sometimes there can be a temptation to investigate
every conceivable loose end, and you end up
spending a lot of time
chasing things that really don't matter.
The
other thing that I will say just kind of globally is that
if you look at the percentage of aged investigations,
so investigations over a year
of the total investigations open, that number has
been creeping steadily up, and the most recent quarterly
report, I think it was north of 60%.
And to my mind,
most
internal investigations aren't so complicated that they should
take a year to resolve,
and a high priority for me
will be understanding
why the investigations that are
moving slowly are moving slowly and what can be done to
address that. If it's a problem with access to information, then
let's communicate that and make sure we get that access.
If it's a problem with
just sort of the pace of work
or
internal processes that are getting in the way, we can deal with
those.
I would say, too, if there's a staffing issue, you need to let us know at budget
time. And be upfront and independent and transparent-
Right
... because that often doesn't happen.
They say, "Oh, no, we're fine to do all of this new work with what we have," and
then we find out six months later they don't.
So you're just getting started, but please be upfront with us on that,
too.
I also think when it comes to priorities, anything involving an elected
official of the city, a commissioner, a deputy commissioner, should have priority
over an entry-level clerk somewhere.
Depending on the nature of the violation, of course, but-
Right
... it's in everyone's interest to have those things wrapped up as expeditiously as
possible.
I think as a general matter, that's fair.
Fair. Excellent. We had a good conversation about
audit and process improvements, and I went into a lot of detail of one
item that crosses several departments.
And I think maybe that's where we lose some of our focus, is once it goes
from streets and sand somewhere else, well, then, they wash their hands of it.
I really look forward to what we're going to be able to do there.
But I really want to be able to use that to create actionable policy,
whether that's legislation or rule making.
We can only do legislation, right?
Unfortunately, a lot of these other decisions are made within the
departments.
Talk a little bit about that and how we can actually take some of these
recommendations and then put them into action.
So I think the first
step there is ensuring that the audit
resources are directed at issues that actually are
important to the city's policymakers.
The second is to work
closely with the
functions that we're auditing
to develop recommendations that are practical, can be
implemented,
and that
can be tracked at a later point. So, for example,
at Exelon,
when we would complete an audit, there would be
an agreed list of recommendations.
Agreed.
Sometimes it would take some pushing with the organization to get the agreement,
but we would have our list of recommendations.
There would be a presumptive timetable set
for implementation of those, and then
there would be follow-up to ensure that the
implementation had occurred as agreed.
One thing I think is
potentially of value, especially for complex
issues where there have been significant changes,
is follow-up work that
extends beyond the relatively brief follow-up
window that is kind of officially part of the
OIG process.
So, for example, I know that there was work done in the procurement
space about a decade ago in the city.
A lot of
changes, there was a lot of focus on that, but
at least from what I've been able to tell from the outside, there has not been work
recently
to look to see were those changes that were
implemented
effective? Are they still in place?
Have things changed and evolved to the point where there's a need for more
work? And particularly with something as complex and as
expensive as procurement, that, to me, is the sort of
issue that OIG should be looking at almost all the
time in one way or another. And that work
that is focused, that is done
with strong communication and, to the extent possible,
partnership with the entity being audited, I think is much more
likely to produce... output that is
helpful for you and your colleagues as you're thinking
about making policy decisions.
Right.
Have you interacted much with Abby Sullivan? She's in the mayor's office.
She's the process improvement point person.
I have not met her yet.
All right. Well, let's get you two together.
And she probably needs a bigger team, and you probably do, too, because I
think there are a lot of good reports that don't go anywhere, or there's a
few modifications made. And when we're looking at lean
times budget-wise, and the need for efficiencies and process improvements,
you are a huge
resource and tool, and we need to be working together throughout government on
that. I will turn it back over.
I have to go back to zoning. So
again, I appreciate the conversations we've had so far.
Oh, I did want to just follow up on Alderman Waguespack's point.
I would love to see revision to the employee code of conduct or staff handbook.
It probably hasn't been looked at in a decade.
Well, I could tell you I don't know, but we should be holding ourselves to a
higher standard
when it comes to extremism and the things we put out into the
world, and I think your eye on that is really important.
So again, thank you for your commitment to this. We are lucky to have you.
I'll be a yes vote, and turn it back. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Alderman. We have non-committee member Chairman Ervin, who
has a brief question or comment that he would like to make. Go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will say this.
I did not intend to even
meet with the inspector general. Nobody really likes to have those conversations.
But
I found that his background gave
me pause to rethink my position.
The last two or three folks that have occupied that space have, in my opinion,
not
moved in a direction that gets us focused toward risk-based auditing.
And my conversation with Mr. Glockner was very refreshing in
that we need our inspector general to function like our
internal audit function, that we can go out and find efficiencies and do the types
of things that are necessary to make government work better
for not only us as council members, but for the citizens of this city.
And I was refreshed in my conversation with Mr.
Glockner, and plus his experience both being in the public and private sector,
which is the type of innovation and things that we need in someone in that office.
So again, we look forward to your confirmation.
You have my support, and I appreciate you allowing me this
30 seconds to barge in, sir. Thank you, sir.
Always. Thank you, Chairman. Next up, Alderwoman Lee, followed by Alderman
Vasquez.
Thank you, Chair, and good morning.
Morning.
David,
thank you so much again for your willingness to step into a position
like this. As you and I spoke briefly earlier this morning,
I won't ask you for the answer again, but I did ask, why on earth would you want to
do this job?
Which, many of us ask very often. It is not an
enviable position
by any stretch of the imagination.
So, I do believe and echo a lot of what my
colleagues have said about your breadth of experience and how
lucky we are to have someone like you with all of this experience to come in
and take on this role. One of the things that I didn't think to ask you earlier
that I'll ask you now is
related to ComEd, and
you were brought in to help address some of the corruption issues there.
And ComEd is a really huge company, sophisticated, had all kinds of
rules. I've worked in a corporation before.
I know everything that they sort of run you through.
What happened over there in your opinion, and what did the scandal
teach you about how corruption becomes normalized in institutions?
So I think that it's a great question, and it's something that I've thought
a lot about during my time there.
And
I want to be careful in answering-
Sure
... not to kind of veer into
things that I need to keep confidential.
But I think at a high level,
there are a tremendous number of really good people who work at
ComEd.
ComEd, as a general matter, had a strong
history as a good corporate citizen,
and then
it
really ran off. Things really ran off the rails in a very bad
way
with the conduct underlying the deferred prosecution agreement.
I think
if you look at some of the things that we did in
response,
I think that gives you some sense of kind of where we
thought the challenges were.
And one was to, we
set up much stronger guardrails for those
who were regularly interacting with public officials.
And
I think a fair number of corporate compliance
programs, when they look at public official risk,
they are thinking
lobbyist compliance, campaign contribution compliance.
They're not thinking about being pulled into
a world
that
is
potentially criminal and
involving bribery. And I think you need
to, as an organization, understand the world you're
operating in and the risk that that outside
environment poses to you,
and the controls that you build have to be
designed
to meet the challenges posed by that outside world.
So, we made
sureThat we had
a number of different controls and checks and balances with
respect to the kinds of interactions people could have with public
officials. We also spent a lot of time
educating our employees and our sort of
third-party agents and lobbyists who interact with public officials
on what the rules are, and what the risks are, and what the
company's standards were,
and we enforced them.
And
if you combine
education about the risks
with a set of controls that are
designed to
mitigate the risks and prevent people from engaging in conduct
that
sort of intersects with those risks,
you're going to be in a much better place.
You
can never, as a compliance and control person,
say, "We have 100% eliminated the
ability of a human being
to do something that's really problematic."
But I think we significantly reduced the risk.
And I think there are lessons for an organization like the city
from that work.
One
of the things I'm very interested in understanding
as I come on board is what kind of
training do we do, and in particular, what kind of
role-based training do we do? It's one thing to
have kind of a general ethics
training. That's great. That's a baseline.
But there's so many roles in any large organization
that intersect with specific risks and specific
rules that you're never going to talk about in a meaningful way
in that high-level training.
But if you've got
more focused training, more focused communications,
then you can have conversations with the people who are most at risk.
And those conversations also can lead you to
think about whether you need to redesign your controls.
The one thing you really don't want to do is create
a system of controls and
rules that are so impossible to comply with
that people drive around them because that's the only way to get their job done.
Yeah. And thank you for that very thorough answer.
And I agree completely because I think,
to me, there's a difference between technical compliance and creating a
culture of ethical behavior, which I think is more sort of-
Right
... what we're talking about towards the end there.
And I do think that we can definitely use it.
I think that there's always going to be some level of
people painting outside the lines and looking for every way to
do that. But the more that we can help build some cultural
change and find ways-
Right
... to do that through your work, and obviously working with the Board of Ethics,
I'm very hopeful.
Yeah.
Thank you. That's all I have, Chair.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alderman Lee.
Alderman Vasquez?
Yes. My first question is, can we get the old map back? Hey, how's it going?
Kidding.
Thank you very much for
even expressing interest in the position.
I think looking at the last two folks who've been
in the seat, it becomes a contentious one, even between the person
appointing the person in the role.
So I think my first general question is,
how do you feel about that dynamic, right?
When you're
independent in that manner and you've got to call balls and strikes across the
board,
that's been the history, that it's not the
least tense relationship
with a mayoral administration.
What's your general sense of having to call balls and strikes, of what that's going
to feel like?
Sure. So that's something I've done my entire career,
and you don't
do this type of work because you want sort
of positive reinforcement and people patting you on the head all
the time.
But I also think that a
lot of conflict is avoidable,
and it's avoidable by communicating early as you see
problems arising.
It's avoidable by building
a track record and relationships of trust
so that
when you come to somebody
with
information that's
uncomfortable for them, their first reaction is not,
"You're out to get me," because they've seen you
in other settings, and they've seen you play it
straight.
The nature of a complicated organization like the city
is
I am absolutely sure there will be a time when
somebody
somewhere
is unhappy with work that we have
done. That's not my goal,
but part of the job in calling balls and
strikes, and part of how you can be effective, and really the
only way you can be effective,
is if you are willing to have those hard
conversations
and sort of be the voice that
sticks up for the facts and pushes.
I have had very positive, very encouraging
conversations with the mayor's administrationAnd with the mayor.
I've had very encouraging conversations with members of the city
council. I don't expect
issues,
but I'm also not naive enough to think it's
impossible that they could arise.
And if they do arise,
despite my best efforts to
kind of navigate around them, yeah, that's
part of the job and I'm prepared to deal with it.
Sure. No, I appreciate that. You may not expect issue, but I think the city of
Chicago does with all the history that we've seen.
But I think your stance about understanding that that is part
of the job, that there's this larger goal as to what
government can be and why you have to call those balls and strikes is incredibly
important, so I appreciate that. My next question is related,
kind of something you were talking about earlier.
So there's instances that I've worked at, like I focus on
the improvement of the tree trim,
that there was reporting on that.
The 311 system, which recently dropped.
The COFA,
right?
It's great to have that information as legislators, but I think often we're working
on so many things, we don't really lock in on one enough to kind of develop
how to get improvement. Whereas the office does
the investigative work to really have ideas on what to work on.
How do you view what that working relationship is like?
Because in some regard, one would want a level of partnership between the
legislative branch and the ones doing the investigative work, but there's also
the independence of what the office is. So how do you see that?
So I think it is, to some extent,
kind of case-specific. I think it would not
be good for the OIG to get
into
sort of suggesting legislation and
policy changes. I think that's very much something that is in
your bailiwick.
But I do think there's room where if you're
looking at an issue and you think, "This is something where
legislation might be helpful," I think in that
setting, there can appropriately be communication
between
your office and the office, the OIG people
who worked on that issue where, here's what we found,
here are the challenges we found, here are
some of the
kind of pluses and minuses of different paths
toward dealing with them.
Yeah, I'd appreciate that because I think the investigation leads to a lot more
context than we would have, and there's a capacity issue with the different ward
offices-
Right
... to be able to work on policy. So I think trying to get that insight would be
extremely helpful. I think
last thing is something that
Alderman Irvin kind of touched on, which is about risk assessment.
Kind of in the same world is just generally our budget process.
I think as we've seen, we're now seeing an evolution of a
council that's becoming more and more independent and looking into ways to
engage in the budget process that is more
open. That leads to, I believe, better outcomes, but it's still
incredibly clunky and messy. I think there needs to be an independent
budget office.
Do you have any intention or if there's a request to kind of really investigate
more of the budget process as how it plays out independent of results so we can
find ways to improve that?
I don't think I'm in a position to answer that question
yet. I mean, it's an interesting question.
One of the things that I would like to do
as we build out the audit plan for next year,
I mean, there's an audit plan in place for this year.
I think there will likely be some opportunity to adjust that.
But as we build the plan for next year, that's sort of where I see
the big opportunity to do things differently.
But I think that process needs to include
conversations with the mayor, members of the mayor's
administration, and with
the city council about what are issues that you see
as challenging where it would be helpful to
have the OIG dig in.
And we'll have to
kind of triangulate to what's within
our capacity and where can we be most useful.
Yeah.
And I think that's the kind of back and forth that I think
can help make the audit program more useful.
Yeah, I appreciate that. I think also being independent, there's a vantage point
that you might have that neither the legislative branch nor the executive would
have in a process. And do you think
there's a value to that as we're watching kind of year over year this sort of
change? And so we're talking about just efficiencies and how that works.
If we don't have a process that is a productive one-
Right
... and we end up in like the last two months of the year kind of fighting it out,
it doesn't lead to better outcomes for the taxpayers of the city.
So, I do appreciate your answers, and I appreciate
really you stepping up for this kind of role. So I will be in support.
Thank you for your time, and thank you, Chair.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alderman.
I believe we'll go to non-committee members. Alderman Conway.
Thank you, Mr.
Kloeckner and Mr. Chairman.
So I take the position of the inspector general very
seriously. I
didn't ever rise to the heights that you did as a prosecutor, but I was a Public
Corruption Assistant State's Attorney at the Cook County State's Attorney's office.
And I had the pleasure of working with the city IG many
times. In fact, I actually remember my very first
felonyJury trial, I put Investigator
Hector Arellano on the stand for eight hours as he talked about
his undercover work discovering bribery
here in the buildings departments.
I got more efficient later on, but I believe he is the chief investigator in
your office now. So I take very seriously the
role of the inspector general in maintaining trust in
city government.
So do you think that we, as aldermen,
should cooperate with Inspector General Investigations?
I think as a general matter, everybody should.
Right. So I will read you something from
Quarter 3 2025 Inspector General's Report.
"The mayor's office declined to terminate or in fact to discipline at all
a senior employee against whom we sustained failure to cooperate allegations.
I am troubled by an appearance that there are different rules for different
people, depending on who they are and with whom they work."
So do you think that the mayor's senior staff should be exempt from
cooperating with Inspector General Investigations?
So I think there's a
distinction between cooperating
and the decision that gets made on a recommendation.
So
I don't want to comment on this particular matter because I wasn't part of the
investigation, I'm not familiar with the facts.
But
as a general matter, there is and there should be a
separation between the investigative
process and the decision-making process.
That's true
in
any system that I've been part of.
And
as a general matter, my hope is that the
OIG will make recommendations that
the relevant decision-makers will find
useful and appropriate.
But
they're not required to follow those recommendations.
The decision-makers, at times,
may have appropriate consideration.
They are able to take into consideration
other facts and other
considerations.
We don't dictate
what they do. I think that
I would be surprised if we are ever at a
point where 100%
of the OIG's recommendations are
embraced and acted on.
That's something that I would strive for-
Mm-hmm
... as the OIG,
in running the OIG. But I also think
that as a practical matter, when you're dealing with human judgment
and complicated settings, there are going to be times when the
OIG perspective won't be adopted by the
decision-maker.
And
when that occurs, I think ensuring that there's
transparency-
Mm-hmm
... that the judgment that's being made is important.
But
the OIG doesn't get to make those decisions.
So in this particular matter,
you're talking about the recommendation, but when I asked you earlier, do
you think people should cooperate in investigations, you said everybody should.
Well, in this particular matter, the person apparently
didn't even cooperate. So do you think it is optional for
us to, city employees to cooperate with IG investigations?
It sounds like that's what you're saying.
So no, I think
the distinction I'm trying to
make is between
cooperation, which is a requirement of the ordinance,
and then the imposition of the consequence for the
finding.
And,
yeah, I
am not in a position to get into
the specifics that went into that
judgment.
But
the mayor, like any other
decision-maker
in the city who is faced with an IG recommendation,
gets to decide whether to accept that recommendation or
not. It doesn't make the city
standards of conduct optional. It's
about how a decision-maker is choosing to impose
consequences.
Yeah. And it's obviously no secret that
the person in question is the mayor's right-hand man, Jason Lee.
He's already self-identified himself as such.
So you,
in your previous response, I believe, from
Alderwoman Lee, you mentioned you've had some encouraging conversations with
the mayor's team. So have you spoken with Mr.
Lee in the course of your appointment process?
Yes.
And presumably during those conversations, you were
aware that the previous inspector general had
recommended he be fired for failing to cooperate with an investigation.
So did you discuss Mr. Lee's multiple investigations with him during your
conversations with him?
No.
And
I feel like I give you the benefit of this. Have you made any promises to Mr.
Lee or anyone else in the administration regarding cases you will
investigate or those you will not?
Absolutely not
And how about, changing gears, under
what
circumstances do you think it's the inspector general's responsibility to
investigate criminal behavior by city employees?
So
criminal behavior
violates the
standards-
Mm-hmm
...
that the OIG enforces. The OIG
has, in a variety of settings,
done investigations and referred matters for consideration for
prosecution. I mean, you worked on one yourself.
Yeah, several.
So it's
a
part of what they do. I mean, the goal is not
necessarily to generate criminal prosecutions.
The goal is to enforce the city's standards of
behavior. But from time to time, you will bump into things that
merit referral.
That's fair. And so,
kind of dovetailing on some other questions, by all accounts, you have a
fantastic reputation.
It is difficult for me to figure out how
someone
with your sterling reputation and sterling background
is appointed by a mayor who said
law enforcement is a sickness, and whose senior staff doesn't
feel like they have to cooperate with the IG.
So anything you want to add to sort of assuage those concerns of noting that,
why you would even want to take this job?
So
I
want to
take this job because I think I can make a difference for the residents of
Chicago.
I care a lot about this city.
I've spent my career here, raised my family here.
I want to see this city succeed,
and I'm at a point in my career where
I think a lot of the different things that I have done
in the private sector and the public sector, in the audit space, and in the
investigations space,
come together to
help enable me, to position me to be
effective here.
I would not have taken the job, would not be interested in the job, if I
did not think
that the mayor was committed
to an effective and independent inspector general's office.
We've had that conversation. He gave me that assurance,
and
in the same way that I've had similar conversations with members of city
council,
and I accept that assurance. And, as I
have said, if
there are times when, despite my best efforts
and despite the assurances that have been given,
and we find ourselves in a spot where there
is not
cooperation or there are problems, then you'll hear about it.
Okay. I appreciate that.
Again, to your credit, I will tell you, I reached out to a
very senior former member of the US Attorney's office about you,
and the quote that came back was, "David Glockner was a
great criminal chief at the US Attorney's office. No BS.
Does cases on the merits without politics.
Great investigative judgment." So therefore, I'm
inclined to certainly give you the benefit of the doubt.
I just think it's very important that the IG
ensure that the days of those who
think they are above the law, like Ed Burke, like Jason Leigh,
that those days are over. And I hope you're ready to be part of
the effort to clean up this town. Thank you.
That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Thank you, Alderman. Recognizing Alderman Garner, non-committee member.
Do we have anyone else who wants to ask questions?
Seeing none.
Before we vote, I just want to take a few moments to speak on this
appointment.
Our last inspector general transition left us without a permanent
inspector general for over six months, which in my opinion, is much too long to
have such a critical position vacant.
And as a result, at the beginning of this term, as many committee members may
recall, this committee passed an ordinance establishing a more structured
appointment process. I'm glad that as a result of this ordinance, we've
had a smooth and timely appointment, and that we are minimizing the
transition time between inspectors general.
From the beginning of this appointment process, my goal has been
to confirm an inspector general who will continue to modernize and
streamline the office's investigatory capacity to
conduct critical audits into city services, and to work closely with
this committee to strengthen the independence and effectiveness of this
office. After speaking with you, Mr.
Glockner, over the past few weeks, I'm confident that you have the
experience, the temperament, and the vision for the office that
aligns with these goals. I look forward to this committee continuing to
work with you and your colleagues in the Office of Inspector General as
you seek to spotlight the great work
that the 100-plus people in that office do day in and day out.
With that, can I have a motion to recommend approval?
Alderman Tagliaferro so moves. All those in favor signify by saying aye.
All those opposed? In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it.
The appointment passes, and thank you for your service, sir.
Thank you.
Next up, we are going to turn to public comment before we turn to the second and
final item. We will take Jessica Jackson,
Zoe Lee, and then George BlakemoreMs.
Jackson, thank you for your patience. Please start at your convenience.
Excuse me, Inspector General appointment, if you could stay to hear the
public comments, that would be very good.
Because the issue is that this is the oversight for ethics.
And I want to read the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary
Commission,
Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct from the ARDC, which
I'm sure you're familiar with.
And that says that an attorney must report illegal
conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit,
or misrepresentation. Right here before your very
eyes
are public officials that are attorneys that should be
reported under that violation, starting with the chairman
himself, Matt Martin. He's a civil rights attorney.
He has listened to me come in here over and over again, talk
about how the public administrators, who are attorneys,
and he has done nothing to them.
Tim Conway, sitting up here reading this law like he the man
of rules and discipline, when he, as a prosecutor, I
tried to show the paperwork from the public
administrator, Louis G. Apostle, who in fact
is stealing property.
He's stealing property with the appointment of JB
Pritzker, our governor, and Tim Conway.
When I went to show Conway, when I went to show him the documents, he ran
and covered his face and said, "Don't show that to me.
Don't you give that to me." But now he wants you to come after Jason
Lee.
The only attorney in City Hall who has
done anything about my case, having full
knowledge that they are breaking the law in the Office of Public
Administration, and the judges in the Probate division, has been
Alderman Tyler Ferrell. And I hate to say his name
from the mic because I know Brandon Johnson is so
retaliatory, but it would be wrong for me to call
attorneys out and put him in that same
category when he has, in fact, put things in writing
to call for investigations because the inspector generals refuse to
investigate what it is that we want investigated.
We want under, what is it, Deborah Weisberg, an investigation
of all the money, a forensic audit of what was spent
on illegal immigration.
Because that money is what had the effect on our property taxes
getting inflated like this,
and they failed to do that. So I dare
Conway stand there. He won't do anything about his own constituent,
Ray Roundtree, who has come to him to look in his case about how
his kids are being illegally kept from him through the system.
So once again, I dare him to stand here
like he's the accomplice of moral.
Him or Matt Martin. You need to-
Next up, Zoe Lee.
Hi, my name is Zoe Lee. Ms. Jackson,
his name is William Conway.
Bill Conway of the 34th Ward. A
veteran, a sorry veteran, but a veteran who
also thinks that he's going to run for mayor.
Let's discuss all that TIF money that keeps going downtown.
So-
Are the
buildings projects, are they being done, like the Lincoln Yard?
Lincoln Yard, $900 million in TIF money, we have no
Lincoln Yards. We in a deficit, a
crazy deficit. That $900 million could've
did something for that. So Alderman,
you're the new
inspector general. Well, Deborah Weisberg, I sent her about
1,300 complaints.
Me too.
Okay? About
David Moore, 17th Ward. David Moore, who was
the alderman at the time that the city decided that they wanted to
knock down the Sandpipers Lounge because it was in the city of Chicago's
name. Because they had to give the rest of that to
Steven Quackenbush, Richard Daley's friend,
Q2RE Realty. They already took six of my godfather's lots.
They were going to try to take the rest of the four lots.
So I'm going to need you to do an investigation on that as well, because I gave it
to Deborah Weisberg, and for some reason, she was just so obsessed with just
Alderman Gardner that it just didn't make any sense.
So since now that she's with Chief of Staff for
Kwame Raoul, who does nothing, because I've reached out to him as
well thousands of times. Hopefully, as you being the new
inspector general, that you will listen to our
complaints,
you will do something about it,
because if you don't do anything about it,
then
at the end of the day, the feds got to come in.
It's Operation Greylord 2.0. It's RICO time.
You know how much TIF money that the North Side keeps stealing from us?
Oh.
And nobody's talking about it.
But Conway thinks he's going to run for mayor. Because what?
Because you a billionaire? Because you couldn't win that State's Attorney General
seat?
He's a terrible, raggedy alderman.
One of the worst to ever do it,
but he a billionaire.
One of the worst attorneys. It can't get no worse than him.
And Matt Martin also, because he's a civil rights attorney, and they're violating
our civil rights like crazy.
So hopefully, Inspector General, that you do the right
thing. Thank you.
Our last public comment is George Blakemore
You should have let her speak prior
to it anyway. The Inspector Jones,
that's a farce. He has no power. He can
only recommend. Recommend. You got no
power. We have Bergerson and this other
lady. You got no power. And you said
what motivated you was money.
Are you volunteering your work?
Money. This is a city of
money. You can get another job and make even more money.
And you were just getting ready to strut right out until this judge
said, "Wait a minute now." And then you turn around.
You have no power.
You can only recommend. The
mayor doesn't have to do anything that you suggest.
So it's just a game here. And this man comes from
all the way, Carrie Austin Roy, Jeremy, all
the way down to Madison or somewhere in
Monroe. These low-life, the Black aldermans.
34
is Carrie. Well, Carrie's not going to jail, so we'll get Brooking,
Calaphar, all of y'all.
All of y'all are a piece of
S-H. "Oh, Mr. Blakemore, you're so vulgar."
Listen here.
This is nothing but a game.
You're not going to do anything. You can't do anything.
You have no power. You can only
recommend.
Get a
better job.
You can't do nothing.
You can only say, "Mr. Blakemore is bad,"
and he's stealing.
But there's
no teeth in that. The mayor wouldn't have to...
It's a game. This whole mess here is a
game.
It's a game. And the Black ones, the white ones, the
Hispanic, the Asian. Where is Trump?
Trump's not down here doing this to you Black folk.
Trump, they can't white man. Trump is not here.
They don't call you an N, but they treat you like one.
They treat you like one, and they don't have no Ku Klux Klan clothes
on, but that's who they are.
Racism is alive here. It's alive. And the
Black ones on the plantation, these old Black aldermans, too.
You know what the white man made, what Master Charlie made on the plantation.
That go for you, Calaphar, and all of you.
All of you. They promise you-
That concludes our public comment.
We will take up our second and last item, which is
O2026-0024036,
the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr. Fair Access to Democracy
Ordinance. As people are coming up to the seats, can I have
a motion to accept the substitute that was circulated to council earlier today?
So moved by Alderwoman Lee. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." All those
opposed? In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it.
The substitute is now before the committee.
Here today to speak on the substitute are Reverend Steven Thurston,
Rainbow PUSH; Stevie Valles, Executive Director of Chicago Votes;
Marlene Hopkins, Department of Buildings Commissioner; Billy Evans, Chief
of Faith Engagement, Mayor's Office; and Sheila Betty, Chief
Strategy Officer, Mayor's Office.
I will turn it over to our witnesses for brief remarks.
Please proceed when you are ready, and thank you for your patience.
Yeah, I can start.
Good
morning,
members of the City Council, members of the Ethics Committee.
Thank you, Chairman Martin, for having us here today.
I'm here to testify in support of the Reverend Jesse
L. Jackson Sr. Fair Access to Democracy
Ordinance. My name is Stevie Valles.
I am an executive director at Chicago Votes.
We're a nonpartisan group that focuses on giving youth
access to civic engagement opportunities through voting,
leadership development, civic education, and advocacy.
For the past few months, we've been meeting with a growing group of civic
organizations across the city of Chicago,
roughly 36 to 40 different civic organizations, in
an effort to develop the language for this Jesse Jackson
Sr. Fair Access to Democracy Ordinance.
The ordinance does three primary things.
It establishes anti-doxxing provisions in
order to protect election workers from their
information being publicly published for the purpose of
bullying or intimidation. It also
ensures that landlords are held responsible to
make sure that mailboxes are secure, and it
establishes a democracy
advisory council.
As I mentioned, and as the members of the committee should have, we have a
letter that's signed on by 36 different community groups.
Some of those community groups are here in this room, including Rainbow
PUSH, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights,
South Asian Coalition for Renewed Democracy, League of Women Voters,
and if you look at the letter, there's a longer list of a number of
other organizations. I want to say that this ordinance
isReally important to Chicago Votes for a number of
reasons. First being when you think about the
anti-doxxing provision, we recruit a lot of young
people to serve as election workers.
We recruit a lot of young people to serve as poll watchers,
and we want to make sure that they feel safe when they're serving in
those very important roles in our democracy.
You can see across the country,
different instances of election workers being bullied or
intimidated and threats of violence.
We don't want that to happen here in the City of Chicago, and we want our young
people to feel that they are protected when they're serving, again, in
these very important roles. We also want to make sure that these
mailboxes are secure because we worked really hard to make sure
that the City of Chicago has vote-by-mail systems.
Over 50% of people living in Chicago rent, and so this
is a large number of people who do need to have a secure
mailbox in order to cast their ballot.
And the last part of the provision of the ordinance, I'm sorry, that we're really
excited about is the Democracy
Advisory Council.
The development of this ordinance is an example of what that Democracy
Advisory Council can do. We had multiple community
meetings to get input on this ordinance.
We had multiple city council briefings to talk to members of city council.
The establishment of this advisory committee will allow for us
to build more than just this ordinance and
strengthen democracy in Chicago.
We will be able to have a system in place where community
organizations, civic organizations can work collaboratively with
city council to come up with new ideas that will make our democracy stronger.
And the last thing I'll say is we are very honored for this
ordinance to be named after Reverend Jesse Jackson.
When we first started working on this ordinance, it was right after the Reverend
passed away.
Now, we have members of our leadership development cohort here
today, or were here today until they were escorted out,
here today to testify and to show their support
for this ordinance. It's important that
young people take up the mantle of the
legacy that Reverend Jesse L. Jackson left behind.
And this is an opportunity to do just that.
For the City of Chicago to establish a democracy working group that
youth will be able to participate in, to continue to give
input and feedback on ways we can make democracy better and stronger
in the City of Chicago. And it is an honor to be able to
champion this legislation, this ordinance.
It's an honor to be working alongside Rainbow PUSH and to keep the
Reverend's legacy alive. And the last thing I'll say, I talked to
Mother Jackie Jackson this morning, as well as Santita, and they
wanted me to articulate their strong support for this
ordinance. They wanted me to thank City Council for all of the work you all
have been doing to honor Reverend Jesse Jackson's legacy, and they
wanted me to thank the Mayor for his work in helping take
care of the Reverend, and we're hoping that we can establish this to keep
hope alive and keep the Reverend's legacy alive. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bias. I think we have next up Reverend Thurston.
Good morning, council members. I'm Stephen Thurston, Chief Impact Officer, Rainbow
PUSH, the organization that Jesse Jackson built on a single
sacred conviction, that the ballot is the people's most powerful weapon.
I stand here today with the weight of 36 community
organizations behind us, unified, mobilized, and watching
what this committee does, as we all recognize that we are not living in
ordinary times. The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby
County in 2013, and before the ink was dry, states were
gerrymandering districts and erecting barriers specifically
designed to dilute Black and brown political power.
That wasn't coincidence, that was coordination.
And then three weeks ago, that same court handed down Louisiana v.
Calias, a six to three decision striking down a majority
Black congressional district that Black Louisianans had fought for in
courts for years to create, calling it an
unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
One of the nation's leading election law experts said it plainly,
"What's left of the Voting Rights Act is a hollow shell." And we saw in
the hours that followed how Southern states readily reacted,
redrawing their maps. Meanwhile, the DOJ is sharing
voter data with Homeland Security.
Election officials and mail carriers have been threatened with
prosecution for simply doing their jobs, and election workers across this
country are being doxxed. Their home address is published, their families
being targeted. These are lived realities.
Ladies and gentlemen, Reverend Jackson taught me that democracy is not a
destination, it's a fight. And since the bell has rung, the
question is, what are you going to do while you're standing in the ring?
Federal power is being deployed to intimidate voters and the
people who were supposed to protect this democracy have decided that they
will not. But you have a chance.
As Stevie just said, this ordinance protects election workers from that doxxing
and harassment and intimidation.
It secures the mail infrastructure so that every vote-by-mail ballot
actually has a fighting chance to be both cast and counted, and it
creates that working group with real authority to identify and
dismantle every barrier that's between all Chicago's
people and the ballot box.
Ladies and gentlemen, these are not gestures, these are simply guardrails, and
right now, guardrails are the last line standing.
Jesse Jackson didn't just march, he organized.
He didn't just protest, he ran. He spent 60 years teaching this
nation that hope without action is just noise.
The federal government will not protect the voteThe courts have proven that they
will not protect the vote, but this city council can do its
part. Holding this ordinance in committee is just holding a knife to the
throat of Reverend Jackson's legacy, and history will not remember who
stayed neutral while democracy was under siege.
History will remember who had power and what they chose to do with that.
So I'm simply asking that you honor the man, that you protect the
people, and you move the ordinance forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Reverend. Last up, we have Billy Evans, I believe from the mayor's
office, for a brief presentation before we open things up to
questions.
Well, good afternoon, Chairman Martin, Vice Chair Lee, and honorable members of the
City Council Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight.
My name is Billy Evans, and I am the Chief of Faith
Engagement in the mayor's office.
I am presenting on behalf of Jeong Yoon, who
is the Chief of Policy, who was unable to be with us this
afternoon, but I have worked with her alongside her and her
committee.
There
we go. All right.
Along with her committee to push this
ordinance forward. Today, I will present to you on
substitute ordinance before you, the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson Sr.
Fair Access to Democracy Ordinance.
This substitute ordinance reinforces the essential infrastructure
that makes democratic participation possible in
Chicago. Honoring the work of Reverend Jesse Jackson,
his lifelong mission expanded the promise of
democracy to communities too often
excluded from it. This policy continues that legacy led
by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and Chicago Votes, along with
30 other supporting organizations, including the League of Women Voters
Chicago, Jewish Council of Urban Affairs, Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights, Reform for Illinois,
Chicago Council of Lawyers, She Votes Illinois,
and more.
There are three points that we would like to make in
regards to the substitute ordinance.
It makes it unlawful to intentionally publish personally
identifiable information of election officials when
done to cause harm or facilitate violence or
stalking, i.e. doxing.
Amends the building code to require landlords to provide and
maintain a secure mailbox for each residential unit.
And number three, establishes a new advisory council on
access to democracy.
Let's look at the poll worker threats.
Post-2020,
the targeting of election workers has disproportionately
exposed poll workers, especially women of color,
to identification and racially charged threats.
A 2024 Brennan Center survey found over
one-third of local election officials have
experienced harassment, abuse, or even threats.
More than one-quarter fear being assaulted at home or at
work, and more than half worry about the
safety of their colleagues and/or staff.
So the poll worker protections. This ordinance
makes it unlawful to intentionally publish personally identifiable
information of governmental workers, including election officials, when
done to cause harm or facilitate violence, as we've already
stated.
Fines of any person who violates
anti-doxing provisions shall be fined not less
than $500 and not more than $5,000 for each
offense, and the private right of action
established.
As we think about and we look through the mailbox security,
54% of all Chicago residents rent their homes.
When tenants lack secure mail, ballots can be lost or
even stolen, and voters may miss deadlines, participation
declines, and trust in election erodes.
Mailbox security also ensures that people receiving public benefits like
Snap, Link,
receive benefits or their information that is nationwide go
to households with children, seniors, or people with disabilities.
And renters and residents of multi-unit housing,
disproportionately lower-income households, face higher rates of
mail insecurity.
Safe and secure mailboxes.
This ordinance amends the building code to require
landlords to follow USPS rules and regulations
to do three things: provide a secure mailbox for each
residential unit, maintain mailboxes in working condition,
and repair or replace damaged boxes within a reasonable
timeframe. It also enforces
department of buildings. Owners would have 15
days from receipt of notice of violation to remedy it,
and fines for any building code violation is between
$500 and $1,000 assessed in administrative
hearings.
You heard about the Advisory Council on Access to
Democracy. The responsibilities and recommendations of this
council
will, one, assess public infrastructure around polling sites,
expand public educationVoting rights and registration
engage disengaged voters, boost civic
engagement, improve
coordination between interagencies, monitor
federal governmental impacts, identify local voting
barriers, recommend city and state policy changes,
and facilitate community dialogue.
This council will meet quarterly.
They will report on recommendations, and they will be due to the mayor and
city council, and they will report on their recommendations
annually by June 1st.
There will be an 11-member council.
One chair, chief of policy for the mayor or their designee, nine
members, including one member between the age of 18 and 24 with
experience in one or more of the following categories: civil rights, disability
access, community organizing, election protection, language
access, or voter engagement.
And members are recommended for appointment by the chief of
policy with input gathered from members of the city council.
And the last one, the election board to designate an ex
officio member.
Thank you, council, for listening.
This is the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson Fair Access to Democracy
Substitute Ordinance. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Evans. We will now open up the floor to questions, first from
committee members, and then non-committee members. Are there...
Is anyone who would like to ask questions? Alderman Lee.
If no one else is going to go, I'll go. Good morning, everybody.
Morning.
Thank you so much for your patience today. I know it's been a long morning.
Thank you for all the work that you've done to bring this
ordinance before us today on the Committee on Ethics.
I've got a few questions, actually.
I appreciate all of the support from all of the organizations, many of whom
I have a lot of respect for and have partnered with
over time. And really, nothing but respect and
admiration for the work that Rainbow PUSH has done over the years.
I want to talk about the
advisory council. And I'm sorry that Jung isn't here
to be able to answer some of these, so hopefully, Billy, you can answer some of
these questions, and if not, we can get these later.
I appreciate wanting to bring together members of
the community who can provide advice and counsel
on a really important topic. Can you, just for the sake of this
conversation,
talk about the difference between this advisory council, the
difference in the relationship between this advisory council and the actual Board
of Elections?
No, thank you, Alderman, for that.
Can I defer that to Sheila Betty-
Sure
... who will...
Do we have a microphone for her? Sorry. Thank you.
Can you identify yourself for the record, please?
Yes, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. My name is Sheila Betty.
I am chief strategy officer in the office of the mayor.
And I'll respond to the question about the distinction between the advisory
council and the Board of Elections.
So the Board of Elections' jurisdiction is strictly in
administering elections and ensuring that the free
speech zone right outside of the polling places is
maintained.
Outside of that, in terms of doing things like voter
engagement, addressing structural issues outside of
polling places, ensuring that we are
addressing the
structural issues around mail-in ballots, that is outside of
the Board of Education's jurisdiction.
So the responsibility of this advisory council,
it relates only to things that are outside of their
jurisdiction. That said, the advisory council
will invite an ex officio member from the Board of
Elections to sit on, so that these
issues will be coordinated.
Yeah. Thank you for that, and it's nice to meet you.
The need for the advisory council, I think that it's worth just sort
of calling out here.
How are we doing those things today?
Before the existence of this council, and I'm assuming that part of this is it's
filling a gap, right? So how has it been
that many of these things have either gone unaddressed, or how have they
just sort of organically been addressed?
Because I know at a minimum, the Board of Elections does do some
outreach for voter education and voter registration.
I've seen them out in the community, in my community in particular, so I've been
really grateful for that. But can you talk a little bit more?
Yes.
Much of that work has been done on an ad hoc basis.
And if we look at some of the work that Rainbow PUSH and Chicago
Votes have done over the years, they have identified an issue where
it comes to access to the ballots, and then work to get it addressed.
And there hasn't been an organized entity that
would be responsible for addressing those issues.
And much of that, having to address issues in terms of access to the ballot,
voter engagement, particularly engaging young people,
has happened as a result of the work of organizations like Chicago
Votes and Rainbow PUSH. And the idea is to have a centralized
location where a government community can be working
together to identify those issues in advance of seeing
them. And I suspect that
perhaps our representatives from Chicago Votes and Rainbow PUSH may have some other
thoughts on that.
Certainly.
Yes, I could speak to
what this work looks like for us as an organization.
Everything listed out that the advisory council will be responsible
for are the responsibilities of
our organizations as well. And we do the best we can to
coordinate with each other. There's a reason why we were able to get
so many groups to sign on to this so quick, because we do a lot of this work
together on an ad hoc basis in an unofficial
manner. This is an opportunity for us to
work collaboratively with City Council on these
recommendations.
And for us,
the official nature of this, the establishment of a
centralized hub for all of these things to be
coordinated, the requirements for
reports, the requirements for meeting once every quarter,
takes it away from being so ad hoc and us doing the best that we can, that we
can actually formalize our coordination.
And ultimately, make a lot of the progress that we've been making with the
Board of Elections in years past a little bit better, a little
bit more formal.
And I think it's a great opportunity for Chicago to set an example for the rest of
the country, and especially a lot of major cities, for what
it looks like to collaboratively do democracy work.
Thank you.
I yield my time.
Feels so official right now. No, thank you for that.
One of the
concerns, and I don't want you to take that as I'm not supportive of this.
I am very much supportive of this effort.
But as someone who sits on the council, and I have not been here
long, four years now, but in the time that I've been here, one of the
things that
really
annoys me at the end of the day is when we do things, we
legislate things, we put in ordinances, and then we don't have enforcement of them.
I want to make sure, and a lot of the line of my questioning is just
will this committee have the resources that it needs to carry out the work that
it's set out to do? There's a lot in here in terms of
looking at polling places. I know that when I sit with my committeemen, we sit
at the Board of Elections to determine polling places.
Accessibility is a huge issue. And let's just call it lack of
accessibility, because that's really the problem that we're dealing with when it
comes to physical
accessibility. Not to mention language accessibility at the
end of the day.
So, one of the questions that I'd like to ask, and I don't know, Sheila or Billy,
if you can answer this or if this has to come back through the chair.
I don't see a whole lot of
formal... And I know Marlene's sitting here.
I know if you call Marlene, she's going to help you with anything
that you need from a buildings perspective.
But a lot of this stuff, we're talking about infrastructure improvements.
Those are hard dollars at the end of the day.
So can someone talk to me about what you envision the
relationship will be with a department like CDOT in
particular, on capital recommendations for improvements around
polling places?
I'm happy to try to answer that.
I'm happy to try to answer that question, and we might need to get some additional
information through the chair.
First, just as to resources more generally, you'll
note that the council will be staffed through
the chief of policy, so that there will be staffing
for the work of the council. Because even
developing these recommendations, we recognize will be resource
intensive.
And that is also what this council will be able to do, is to
make recommendations that I expect ultimately would
come before City Council when it comes to any kind
of capital improvements. There certainly will
be, I think, some administrative recommendations that I could
see being made. And just for example,
additional targeted work around voter
registration and developing toolkits that aldermanic
offices could use to ensure that community members
are getting registered to vote and have access to information about
polling places and ensuring that people understand
about their right to vote by mail. I can see that there could be a whole
host of
administrative public education activities that the council
could engage in. And then there likely will be additional
recommendations that would require the investment of resources that
would have to obviously be worked through with council.
Is there currently...
Because nothing is free, right? We know that.
If I want to donate a whole bunch of stuff to an organization, I can't
expect the organization to go rent a truck, have storage, and be able to do all
that. I've worked on both sides of this.
So I've got a budgetary question. Is there sufficient
budget currently in the chief policy
officer's office in order to even accommodate the
first six months of this? And we're in May right now, and we
have a couple of really big elections coming up.
The short answer to that is yes. This is such a critical issue that we will
be making some reassignments in terms of staffing to
ensure that this council can be adequately staffed and supported.
Great.
Got my budget question answered.
So we talked about reporting on an annual basis.
Report of findings and recommendations annually.
Do you have some sense of out of the gate, what are you going to look at?
No one's expecting a report by June 1st this year, by the way.
So
...
No, that is correct.
I think that Chicago Votes can
speak to some of the recommendations that-
Great
Yeah. So I think that we've been doing a lot of work already with our
partners, many of them signed on to this ordinance, as well as with the
Chicago Board of Elections,
and would be able to formalize some of our ad hoc
recommendations based off of that work, recommendations around language
access, recommendations around physical
access, recommendations around civic education,
know your rights material,
recommendations around targeted voter registration efforts.
Beyond that, I think that this list,
as it relates to responsibilities and recommendations, which I kind of already
spoke to, assessing public infrastructure around polling
locations, expanding public education, voting rights, and
registration,
engaging disengaged voters, boosting civic engagement,
interagency coordination, federal government monitoring, federal
government impact, identifying local voting barriers,
recommending city and state policy changes, and facilitating community
dialogue. These are all things that we do
on an ad hoc basis with these organizations, with the state
legislature, with members of City Council.
I would imagine that with this list, that those
recommendations would be more broad, and having this list would allow for
us to deepen, more intentionally, some of those conversations and really assess
some of the things that are a struggle right now, but also some of the
opportunities that we can pursue in the future.
But yeah, I anticipate those recommendations falling under those
umbrella areas.
But we would have to have those more formal dialogues for me to
list out exactly what we want to do. I mean, I personally have ideas.
I bet you have a lot of ideas.
I have a lot of ideas, but I'm going to save those for when we actually have a
council, and then we can come and talk to you all about it.
I got it. And
is it safe to assume that the 36 organizations, plus likely many
others, will join you in terms of being the foot soldiers for this?
I mean, this is a 10-member council, and what you're talking about is a very
heavy lift in terms of the kind of data that you want collected.
I mean, that's going to require boots on the ground, people getting out.
Is that part of the assumption here?
Reverend Jackson taught us how to mobilize and galvanize. I think we get that part.
All right. Now we got it on the record.
Let me see. Is there any...
And data collection, is that something that we're going to try to get standardized
through this committee, or sorry, this advisory council as well?
Again, Vice Chairwoman, the short answer is yes, and that is one of the reasons
why it was so important to ensure that there
would be staffing from the chief policy
team, which has capacity for data analysis and that kind of deep
research that could inform these recommendations.
Got it. Thank you. I'm going to move to Commissioner
Marlene Hopkins for a minute, and I promise I'm going to wrap up, Chair.
With the
addition of the requirements of the building code,
actually, it's already in the building code, is it not, that we provide mailboxes?
There is information in the code. Unfortunately, there isn't any
provisions for anyone that is not in compliance with
the standards of ensuring that there are secure mailboxes
available to renters and residents.
Got it. And I just did my homework on the ordinance and learned a little
bit about the requirements from the United States Postal Service.
I know we refer to it in the ordinance.
But what's the consequence for non-compliance?
So during the course of an inspection, the inspectors walk past the
mailboxes as they're going into the buildings.
So upon passage of this ordinance, and
actually
implementation, any owners whose buildings
are non-compliant, meaning the mailboxes are not properly secured,
would be documented just as all of our other building code violations,
and there's always a period to cure.
But
when they go to administrative hearings, as long as they're showing compliance
of the violation, they won't be cited, but if they
plead liable, then as with all other building code violations, it would be a
minimum fine of $500.
Regardless of the size of the building, that it's just... Okay.
Yes.
Okay. I think that's all I've got for now. Thank you very much, everybody.
Great. Thank you. Wanted to acknowledge two non-committee members
who were able to join us but not recognized, Alderman Burnett,
Alderman Casada. I will note that we do have a meeting
that is scheduled for 12:30 in here.
Obviously, our priority is making sure that this gets the right discussion.
I just flag that in case there's opportunity for concision in
asking questions, that would be appreciated by
Mabel, among many others. We have in the queue Alderman
Vasquez, Nugent, Waguespack, and O'Shea.
Message received, Chairman. Thank you very much.
Thank you all really for all the work being done.
I think when we're looking at the moment we find ourselves in, as was very
aptly mentioned, this is very much a fight.
We're watching as voting rights are stripped away,
and prior to that, the concern about the federal government actually stationing at
different polling locations
under the auspices of trying to find voter fraud.
It's clear we're seeing fascism in real time.
And so having Chicago step up, and you all step up to move something forward,
that actually puts some of that fight back
is important. We can't just stand by.
And so I appreciate Chicago Votes and Operation Push for the work that you're
doing. In the interest of saving everybody time, I'll just go
through
theOne through the chair and kind of a follow-up.
It is about the resources necessary to implement some of the recommendations,
right? So if through the chair you could provide what the chief of policies
positions currently are, which ones would be utilized to
support the council, what the cost on all those are, because
as much as we all want to do the work,
we focus on so many different things related to the budget that we want to make
sure that it's built adequately in a way that implements things.
And
I think there's a variety of things being discussed, but even through the language
access, Chicago is nowhere where it needs to be as it relates to
language access, even considering the last number of years we've had to
deal with
so many issues. I say this as chair of the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee
Rights. We want to make sure that folks are adequately staffed and resourced to
actually implement the change that they're going to recommend.
So I would love to get that through the chair,
as well as an understanding of
how the council imagines interplay with different departments.
Obviously buildings make sense for enforcement there,
but there's a lot of different departments that I think could be best served in how
we engage the public. CDOT was mentioned as well.
And so, yeah, so I would appreciate those things.
And I guess the only question I've got
generally is the ordinance
states that within 30 days of passage,
initial appointments need to be introduced.
And so given the challenges in getting appointments that we've
seen over the last number of years,
what's the confidence level on having initial appointments introduced 30 days after
passage? And that's open to whoever.
So it's the 30 days after the effective date.
And the other thing that the ordinance provides is
that those nominations or those appointments will be made with the input
of city council. And so the hope is, is that that will be done through
a collaborative process with individuals who would
be identified by Chicago Votes and Rainbow PUSH.
So I think the hope is that we're building in the shared decision-making,
co-governance on the front end to ease that nomination process because
this is such a critically important thing to get in place as soon as possible.
Sure, yeah. Given that 30 days is a small window, so even being
able to articulate to us what communication looks like, right?
So once this thing gets passed, I, for example, chair of the committee I
serve, think about the language access, so I'd want to get in front of anybody to
talk to about that. So even if understanding what a
process would look like for those of us who want to engage, if it is to provide
input, would be important in the interest of expediting and making
sure that everything hits the mark as far as the introduction.
So that would be my recommendation, and any follow-ups on that would be greatly
appreciated. Again, thank you all so much for the work.
I will absolutely be in support and look forward to this thing passing, and then 30
days after that, getting the appointments handled. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Alderman. Alderwoman Nuchen.
Thank you, Chair, and thanks to the folks up here who've been working on this.
I'm just going to ask a bunch of rapid-fire in the, recognizing the
time. Is this the first ordinance where we are
criminalizing doxing in the city? Do we know?
For the City of Chicago, yes, but there is a parallel state law.
So it is already law in the state?
The state has Anti-Doxxing Civil Liability Act.
And then as
written in this ordinance, are our penalties on par with the state
more,
less?
There are some comparable things, but they are not identical.
Both,
for instance, provide for
private right of action, but the penalties are, the
fine provisions are unique to this ordinance.
Okay.
With the mail
portion of the ordinance,
Commissioner Hopkins,
how are building owners made aware if they're in violation?
So their violations are the same path forward
that we currently have. We complete the inspection, a notice of
violation is sent. If
the number of violations warrant the
enforcement in administrative hearings, then it will go to administrative hearings,
but pursuant to the code, they have
up to this actually 45 days from the notice of
violation to-
Is that snail mail or what do we do? How do we do it? Oh, I guess that's...
I see the irony in this question, but is that how we notify?
Do we notify people through the mail?
So it is. They are notified through the mail, but they also can check our
website immediately after the inspection to see the violations
that were cited.
Okay. And then I don't know who this question goes to,
but I think some folks have
definitely
brought up some concerns about electioneering.
If you are going to be chosen to be on
this panel,
is there anything in there to prevent candidates from being on this?
There is a provision, Alderman Nuchen, in the draft
which basically
prohibits members of this council
from engaging into a prohibited political
activity as defined in the governmental
ethics. That is, by the way,
in subsection
G2
of the provision regarding the advisory council.
G2.
Okay.
Yeah.
Do we want or...
I'll just
waitI
think sometimes there's some concern if folks are running for elected office,
participating in a get out the vote type
outfit. How would we deal with that?
Or have we thought about that?
For example, if I'm running for
state rep mayor, I probably shouldn't be on this
advisory board because it could be self-serving.
But that is different than
G2, correct?
Yeah. Basically, G2 is codifying the current
restrictions under the governmental
ethics ordinance. So basically, that limitation is
engaging in political activities, for instance, in
city times or city-
Speak into the microphone
Yeah, sorry.
I can't hear.
Yeah. The prohibition in G2 is basically
codifying what is already existing in the ethics code.
For instance, electioneering during city times
or in city property and stuff like that.
So this provision is carefully balanced with
another state law,
which would basically protect its employees' and
officials' rights to engage in political and civil
activities. So that
state law is
preemptive, so we have
to strike the balance there not to infringe upon people's
right to engage in political activities, and at the same
time, engage in a private political activity.
Sure.
I
see what you're saying about the electioneering.
I just have concerns, though, on advisory type boards if somebody
is seeking higher office.
I would think we might want to inoculate or insulate ourselves there and
perhaps not have people be running for office
or perhaps be elected,
serving on this advisory
council.
If I may
make just a process point,
that the individuals on this council will be
nominated with input from city council, and then will have to be
approved by city council. So I think that your
point is very well taken, and I don't believe that it was the
intent of any of the groups who are involved in this
for this to get into political activity or electioneering.
But there will be those checks and balances in addition to try to prevent
that.
Okay. I do have a point of-
Quick bit of information.
Go ahead.
Thank you. Maybe Radiyatou, you can answer this question for me, because I'm not as
familiar with the section of the code that it references in the
ordinance. Is there any prohibition on
individuals who may be doing campaign work for
candidates during an election time
within the code?
There is no general prohibition, but the prohibition
is in the manner of doing that job. For instance, if that
activity is conducted during city times or on
city property, that is prohibited.
But they can engage in volunteerism, for instance, outside
of their normal city hours and city employment, and that's not
prohibited under either our code or under any other law that I'm
aware of.
Got it. And so just to be clear, these wouldn't be city employees.
These are people who are on a voluntary board.
So there's really not that sort of city time piece of it.
I ask the question just because, and again, this has been raised in a few
other briefings too, just about conflicts of interest.
Look, and what this is all about is voter
access and making sure that everybody has access to the
polls, has the information that they need and the ability to get there.
I think we want to keep it as clean and above board as
possible, and really,
this more than anything above reproach.
So, just something to flag. And I know we'll have the
opportunity during the confirmation process to ask some of those
questions. So I raise it just to say, is there an opportunity to
then add a little bit more
strength to the guardrails, if you will. Thank you.
The
other thing I just want to mention,
I think the intent of
this ordinance is very good, but
the devil is
always in how we effectuate what we put on paper.
And,
when I was looking at the criteria to be on this advisory council,
we've had some difficulties with CCPSA with the 18 to 24
requirement. I think it should be a
goal to have somebody 18 to 24. I don't know if it's in
our best interest to legislate that.
And I recognize we always want youth participation, but we've seen in the
CCPSA hearings recently that it's been a
bit problematic to retain the candidates.
The other thing is when I
read through the criteria,
would a nurse be able to be on this advisory council based on this
criteria?
I think the
nurse would fit into the disability access component of it.
Okay.
Like a teacher? Just a-And the reason I'm asking this is
not because I think the intent of the legislation is really good,
but we've created a tremendous amount of advisory councils over
the past few years, and
I just want to make sure that
as we
try to create
more councils and more legislation that is supposed to open the process
and get more people out to the polls and make them more accessible,
that we're writing them in a way that
opens doors and doesn't close it. And I read this and thought, "Ooh, there might be
a lot of people that could be really good fits that might be barred from this."
Mm-hmm.
And I'm not quite sure. I'd actually like thoughts from the panel.
Do you want to say anything?
I want to speak back to the young people piece.
Yeah.
Between our two organizations, we've got an army of young people that are
actively engaged every Saturday, pulling up to push every action,
every activity that we take on. We've got the people.
So if you need people, holler at us. We've got young people.
Just a quick point of information.
Radiyatou, I'll direct this to you.
For the experience that's listed in the
composition piece around subsection one, it
speaks to experience, but I don't read it as to require professional experience.
So someone could be a nurse, a teacher,
a student, and potentially, subject to
nomination approval, have requisite experience outside
of how they spend 9:00 to 5:00 during the work week. Is that fair?
That's correct.
Okay.
And again,
Chairman, these are disjunctive criteria.
That means one or more of these. So-
You can-
... the assessment is correct, and also, these are disjunctive
criteria. That means it's not cumulative.
That means having a lived-in experience in one
of these categories would qualify the person to be nominated
for this body.
Understood. Thank you. Alderwoman Nugent, back to you if-
Sure. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because Jung is the
policy chief for the mayor, and it sounds like the positions would be
going through Jung to come to us. But I
want to make sure on record that we're talking about this today, and
it's about inclusivity, not saying candidates,
they don't fit the left and right lateral limit of civil right
or community organizing. What about the person that answers the
phone at the insurance company?
Right.
They deal with a lot, right?
Right.
And
somebody could be really good. But I'm asking these questions
because I've met some significant pushback in the last few years with
respect to candidates that I think would be really good on
commissions.
Okay.
That concludes my questions. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you.
Alderman Waguespack, followed by O'Shea.
Oh, and recognizing Alderwoman Menah Hoppenworth and Alderman
Sigcho-Lopez as non-committee members.
Thanks, Chairman. So my first question is,
was the Chicago Board of Elections
advised of this, and are they here to testify?
Thank you for the question. They were
advised, and I do not believe they are here to testify.
What was their
official response to this new advisory board?
So I communicated with them, sent them a copy of
this, and what the Board of Elections attorney
communicated to me previously was that anything that was
outside of their jurisdiction, that they would be
neutral on.
So it seems like almost everything in here is in their jurisdiction.
Essentially, if you just look at the Board of Elections
meeting minutes and their agendas, pretty much everything in
here seems to be along those same lines and is
written into their monthly meetings.
It is the same discussion that we have with them at the budget hearings.
So
what
is it here that
is
outside of the scope of what they already
do? And not only them, but the State Board of Elections.
So one example would be specific strategies to
engage disengaged voters,
recognizing that some of those strategies need to happen at a hyperlocal
level.
Another example would be issues surrounding
physical accessibility issues,
particularly in voting locations that are controlled by the City of
Chicago. So that's just an example of two
such things that would be outside of their jurisdiction.
I don't understand, because they have
people who go out in the neighborhood on a constant basis to engage
voters, to find ways to create more accessible
voting locations. We engage with them during every
election to make sure that every location is
accessible, and if it's not, to try to find something else that is.
So what's the difference?
Honestly, there's nothing here that you've said that
they don't already do.
Well, the Board of Elections, for example, isn't going to have the
authority to build an extra ramp in
a facility or fund the building of an additional ramp.
That's true.
Or-
But they would essentially tell the city
or tell the committeeman or somebody else that we need a different location,
and look for that other location. Or if it has to get done, to talk to the
building owner, which they do on a frequent basis to
build that ramp
Alderman, I'm not trying to make the case that
they're
not closely related.
Right.
But also, the Board of Elections just doesn't have the
authority to build a ramp. The Board of Elections also doesn't-
I know that
... have the authority to designate areas
outside of the free speech zone that may be available
for parking on election day for people who have mobility
impairments. And I'm just, again, giving an example.
So I don't mean to suggest that there isn't some connection there,
but the idea here is to identify
access to democracy-related issues that are not squarely
in BOE's jurisdiction, and to try to get community
engagement around those.
Okay.
Can I add something?
Um.
Can I add something, please, Alderman?
I do want to just note that
the Board of Elections works closely with us every
election cycle and reaches out to us to help with all of
these things listed and some of the things that you mentioned that show up in their
board meeting notes.
I think that the establishment of this council will
formalize our engagement with the Board of Elections, with them being an
ex officio member of the council.
So instead of the way it operates now on an ad hoc
basis, where we'll hear from the Board of Elections saying, "Can you
help us get this public information out?
Can you identify for us where you guys are going to have voters so we
can make sure that this is an accessible location for this number of voters?"
I think that having this designated space will allow for
us to operate collaboratively with the Board of Elections,
and help us be more
community-centered around setting up our elections
processes as opposed to these ad hoc back and forths that
we experience with the Board of Elections as of right now.
Hmm. Okay.
So,
going back to the question about the actual cost here.
So can somebody tell us what the budget is going to
be other than you adjusting your staff
to
work on this issue? So under the Office of Policy,
there's a director, two senior project managers, the deputy mayor, and assistant
deputy mayor. So you're saying that they will be the ones staffing
this entity?
That's correct, Ald. That's correct.
Okay. And what other costs can we expect from
doing all of this other work
if the Board of Election commissioners aren't going to be doing that actual
work to fix things?
Are you making cost recommendations to the city for all of
these things, adding something to which budget
to get those things done?
Well, I would imagine that if there are specific recommendations that would
have budget implications, that they would have to go through City
Council. So what this advisory council
does is make recommendation. It doesn't have any budgetary authority.
It doesn't have any independent authority to implement these
recommendations.
Okay.
Just reading through that, it just seems like it's more of a
diktat to make sure those things get done, including the
accessibility aspect under point...
Or
looks like 060 number one.
But that's fine. In terms of the...
Let's see.
Rediatou, when you're talking about enforcement, and this goes to
Alderman Nugent's question about
checks and balances, enforcement of
G2. What actual enforcement has
taken place when complaints have been made on these
issues already
similar to G2?
Thank you for the question, Alderman Wachsback.
That provision actually is enforced by the
city's
Board of Ethics. I don't have that information with me.
Actually, it's not.
HR, Board of Ethics,
on any violation like this, send it to the OIG.
HR and Ethics have repeatedly failed to take
on that task. So what would be the difference here if somebody engaged in that
same exact political
work or prohibited political work or
activity under this entity?
If the department refuses to engage
to challenge that activity, what is our
solution to fixing that problem?
This is more an enforcement question than a legal
question, so I defer to the enforcing department
is...
Okay. So is Ethics here to address that issue?
I am not sure on that. I'm not positive.
Okay.
Because we've had repeated violations of that, as you well know, from
a lot of different sides, a lot of these other entities that have been created
over the last three years. And
we were just talking about it with the inspector general before this portion of the
meeting started at length about those different issues that have
been taking place. So, I think it would be helpful to hear from Ethics about
what they're really going to do when it comes to this section to
enforce violations of city code, including
what this would create.
All right. Chairman, that's all I had.
I think-I like the intent
of this,
but I'm having a little bit of a hard time with reconciling a couple of the
issues with both ethics and the Board of
Elections commissioners. And also just want to
comment too that we just sat here through
testimony from the inspector general talking about violence
in the workplace, and extremist activities,
and threats to public officials,
and I think all of us feel that we want to see that
change. We want to see that go away so that people can do
their jobs without the threat of violence or the
insinuation of violence.
And I think that when it comes to this item as well,
that there should be not just a prohibition on that, but there should be
an attempt by the administration to make sure that they follow through when
complaints are made, or when there's very apparent,
very straightforward comments that are made, even on committee
floors, that should be
not just prohibited but should be checked before they are
made,
especially to elected officials when somebody's trying to pass something.
So, Chairman, I don't have any other questions, but thank you for the time.
Yeah. Thanks very much, Alderman. Alderman O'Shea.
Thank you, Chairman.
Are any of the
commissioners of the Chicago Board of Elections here?
Thank you for the question. I don't believe so.
Who are the commissioners of the Chicago Board of Elections?
There's 50 people in this room,
and they can't tell us who the three commissioners of the Chicago Board of
Elections are.
Well,
Maricel Hernandez, who's been there many, many years,
June Brown, and Laura Codelman.
Those are the commissioners of the Board of Elections who aren't here
today and no one could name.
Is the executive director of the Chicago Board of Elections here,
the person that comes before us every year at budget hearing?
Can anybody tell me the name of the executive director of the Chicago Board of
Elections?
I'm done.
Any other questions
for the committee?
Okay, can
I get a motion to recommend approval of the
substitute ordinance?
Alderman Taliaferro so moves. All those in favor signify by saying aye.
All those opposed? In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it.
There being no further business before this committee, Alderman Vasquez moves to
adjourn. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed?
The opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The meeting is adjourned.
Thank you all.