Unlike Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the 13 new Chicago City Council members sworn in Monday didn't get to make speeches on live TV, weren't greeted by hundreds of well-wishers at City Hall and couldn't match the mayor's six executive orders.
But they represent the largest turnover among the council's 50 aldermen in decades, and during their four-year terms they will play a crucial role in Emanuel's pledge to face Chicago's biggest challenges.
In addition to voting on the new mayor's initiatives, they'll say yea or nay to zoning requests and, in the least glamorous but most essential part of the job, field all manner of complaints about overflowing sewers, unplowed streets and rats.
First, though, they must figure out the basics.
Ald. Nicholas Sposato, 36th, a firefighter who defeated the regular Democrat appointed by Daley, said he just had the phones installed in his ward office Monday morning, but he's waiting for the computers. His predecessor left him no files, and his landlord even got cited by the city for not having the right permits.
Yet Sposato is ahead of many freshman colleagues who don't have ward offices yet. And he's confident he'll get the hang of it, in part because he hired Maurita Gavin, the longtime ward office manager for former Ald. Brian Doherty, 41st, who lost her own bid for office.
"You're only as good as the people around you," he said.
"They are overwhelmed right now, for sure," said Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, a newcomer four years ago. "I've talked to quite a few of them. We've had probably 10 of them come through our office, alone or with staff. They are essentially mirroring my staff, to show them how they might get things done, with the intention of them creating their own system, but we've spent the last few weeks coaching."
Some aldermen will have an easier time, like Matthew O'Shea, 19th, who already was his ward's Democratic committeeman and had worked for the alderman he replaced, Virginia Rugai.
"To be honest, I've just been waiting for this to be over," he said after the aldermen were sworn in as a group during inauguration ceremonies at Millennium Park. "I'm anxious to get to work."
The first real business meeting of the council is Wednesday, when the new committee chairmanships worked out mostly by Emanuel and his floor leader, Ald. Patrick O'Connor, 40th, are expected to be approved.
Many aldermen said they are pleased Emanuel has reached out personally, something Emanuel alluded to in his inaugural speech.
But Emanuel's talk of cooperation may just be a reflection of the reality that he's faced with a more independent-minded council than his predecessor, Richard Daley.
"It's a different council, and the aldermen might have different ideas about what should be done and not necessarily kowtow to all of Mayor Emanuel's requests," said Dick Simpson, a former alderman and political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Whatever the case, Ald. Joe Moore, 49th, who opposed Daley more than any of his colleagues, said he's taking Emanuel at face value.
"I think everyone is approaching this with a spirit of cooperation, and I'm certainly prepared to press the restart button and start fresh," Moore said.
While Daley kept council peace in part by spending funds around the city, veteran Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st, cautioned that it might be hard for new aldermen to keep their constituents happy as Emanuel preaches austerity.
"You go into office really trying to help your people, and for years when the city was on an upward incline, that meant more services, more perks so to speak," Brookins said. "And now you have tough decisions about taking away some of those things."
No comments:
Post a Comment