(WTTW News)
Twenty-seven people applied to replace convicted former Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson on the Chicago City Council and represent the city’s 11th Ward, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office announced Tuesday.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot — and the three-person committee advising her — will have to work fast to narrow down the applicant pool and nominate a replacement for the disgraced grandson and nephew of Chicago Mayors Richard J. Daley and Richard M. Daley who was convicted Feb. 14 on seven counts of lying to federal bank regulators and filing false tax returns.
Lightfoot has less than a week to make her selection in order for the Chicago City Council to consider her pick at its next scheduled meeting March 23.
The applicants include Denise McBroom, who served as Daley Thompson’s chief of staff from September 2021 until his forced resignation from the City Council, and Patrick Murray, who worked as a Chicago Police officer for 30 years and served as first vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police from 2017-19.
Lightfoot made headlines in July 2019 when she called Murray an “FOP clown” when he approached the microphone to speak during a City Council meeting. The mayor later said she should not have made that remark loud enough to be captured by the microphone on the rostrum.
Two of the applicants work for the Chicago Police Department and another is a member of the Chicago Fire Department. Two other applicants worked for the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, according to the resumes released by the mayor’s office.
One applicant works for the Chicago Park District and another is an administrator at a Chicago Public School, while others hold a variety of positions in community organizations.
Rules Committee Chair Ald. Michelle Harris (8th Ward) is leading the search committee that includes Salvador Cicero, principal of the Cicero Law Group; Grace Chan McKibben, executive director of the Coalition for a Better Chinese Community; and Jamie Trecker, producer and co-host of Lumpen Radio, officials said.
Whoever Lightfoot selects and is confirmed by the City Council will potentially get a leg up if they choose to run for a full term in February 2023 to represent what is likely to be a very different 11th Ward.
Both proposed ward maps backed by the Black Caucus and the Latino Caucus would redraw the 11th Ward to include a majority of Asian voters, which would be the first of its kind in Chicago, and comes as Chicago’s Asian population surged by 31%, according to the 2020 census.
City Council Latino Caucus Chair Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th Ward) has called on Lightfoot to appoint an Asian American to fill Daley Thompson’s seat, which had been held by a member of the Daley political operation since 1964.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
