Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) joined Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) on Wednesday delayed the appointment in protest of the Law Department’s treatment of Anjanette Young, who was forced to stand naked while an all-male team of Chicago police officers mistakenly raided her home.
Celia Meza will become the first Hispanic woman to serve as Chicago’s corporation counsel — in spite of the political controversy stemming from the Law Department’s handling of a lawsuit triggered by a botched police raid on the home of Anjanette Young.
The City Council is likely to make certain of it on Friday during a meeting that aldermen hope will be a stark contrast from the political chaos Wednesday.
Earlier this week, Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) joined Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) in using a parliamentary maneuver to delay Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s appointment of Meza.
The maneuver was their way of protesting the Law Department’s treatment of Young, who was forced to stand naked while an all-male team of Chicago police officers raided mistakenly her home.
Meza last week filed a motion to dismiss Young’s lawsuit against the city after Young rejected what her attorneys viewed as a “lowball” offer from the Lightfoot administration to settle the lawsuit for $1 million.
The mayor’s allies have also refused to hold a hearing on the Anjanette Young ordinance championed by African American female aldermen that includes more sweeping search warrant reforms than the general order proposed by Lightfoot and police Supt. David Brown.
Lightfoot was so furious about the delay Wednesday that she recessed the City Council meeting, marched to the back of Council chambers and engaged in an angry confrontation with Taylor that included pointing a finger in the alderman’s face.
Taylor accused the mayor of talking down to her as if she was a “child.” She has demanded an apology, for which she is still waiting. Taylor has also likened Lightfoot to a schoolyard “bully” and said she would stand up to the bully by refusing to speak to the mayor until she apologizes for “disrespecting” her.
Friday’s meeting began with always outspoken Ald. Carrie Austin (34th) admonishing her colleagues — and the mayor — for the lack of decorum Wednesday.
“We should love and respect one another. ... The Lord said, `Love your enemy.’ And we are not enemies. But we disrespected one another. We used words that we wouldn’t ordinarily use. We shook fingers and talked to each other like we were all children,” Austin said.
“We’ve got to come back to the respect that we all deserve. My husband said at one time in the Council, `I ain’t got to like you to do business with you. But we have to respect one another if we don’t do anything else.”
Austin was applauded by everyone — including Lightfoot.
It’s not at all certain there will be any mention of either Anjanette Young or the confrontation between Taylor and Lightfoot.
There is sure to be praise for Celia Meza, the groundbreaking nature of her appointment and the tough work that lies ahead.
During her confirmation hearing last week, Meza vowed to improve the Law Department’s dismal record of minority hiring and speed compliance with a consent decree guiding federal court oversight over the Chicago Police Department.
Still, there is support for Taylor and her demand for a mayoral apology that has not yet been offered.
“I respect my colleague’s actions the other day in recognizing Ms. Anjanette Young. I believe the mayor owes my colleague a sincere apology,” said Ald. Sophia King (4th), who joined her fellow Black female aldermen in co-sponsoring the Anjanette Young ordinance.
“There are rules of order and … tools that we have to speak our minds. She did that. She shouldn’t have been reprimanded like a child. We are peers. I don’t know when a mayor has left the rostrum to reprimand a city councilman. I think she should apologize for that move.”
As the first Latina to serve as corporation counsel, Meza is more sensitive than her predecessors to the need to diversify the Law Department’s 295 staffers, most of them attorneys.
She got her start as a law clerk for Alan Page, the former Bears and Vikings defensive tackle who went on to serve as chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
“I have tasked individuals with providing me with up-to-date statistics on the number of diverse attorneys and hires we have in the department — the diversity percentage of our outside counsel and the diversity of any retained experts,” she said.
“The Law Department must do better. Not can. Must.”
Meza was Lightfoot’s counsel and senior ethics adviser when the mayor promoted her to replace Corporation Counsel Mark Flessner, who was forced out in the political fallout from the botched raid on Young’s home.
At the time, Lightfoot claimed not to know about Flessner’s attempts to block WBBM-TV (Channel 2) from airing bodycam video of the raid, which showed a crying, naked Young repeatedly asking officers what was going on as they continued to search her home. Police, it turns out, had raided the wrong address.
from Chicago Sun-Times - All https://ift.tt/35PE9nr
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