City Council chooses Ald. Villegas as zoning chair in latest blow to Mayor Johnson

The City Council's Zoning Committee chair stalemate that has stalled 85 development projects ended Wednesday with the election of veteran Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) to the post and Ald. Derrick Curtis (18th) to replace Villegas as Economic Development Committee chair.

The reorganization was the latest political defeat for Mayor Brandon Johnson at the hands of an emboldened City Council that rejected the mayor’s corporate head tax during last fall's city budget debate. Villegas and Curtis were part of the renegade City Council majority that approved an alternative budget in defiance of the mayor.

The City Council took matters into its own hands after Johnson was unable to deliver a majority vote for his two previous favorites to replace now-retired Zoning Committee Chair Walter Burnett: Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) and Daniel La Spata (1st).

“It certainly is another example of the Council stepping up and sort of rescuing an item to fill a void of what’s not happening on the Fifth Floor [mayor’s office] that’s consistent with what took place with the budget,” said Southwest Side Ald. Marty Quinn (13th), one of Johnson’s most outspoken critics.

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) said the majority bloc had no choice but to break a stalemate that had largely brought development in Chicago to a halt.

“It’s the one committee that simply must meet or you get this massive backlog of important legislative matters that would cause real harm to allow them to languish. We can’t let it happen, ” Hopkins said.

In late November, Acting Zoning Committee Chair Bennett Lawson (44th) gave Johnson a year-end ultimatum: Make his committee post permanent with control over his own staff or he’s done with the time-consuming job.

Lawson stuck to his guns by refusing to hold a Zoning Committee meeting in January, though in February he chaired a meeting that included Foundry Park, a scaled down version of the massive Lincoln Yards development on the North Side.

He had hoped to convince his colleagues to give him the permanent job when the full City Council met on Feb. 18, but the stalemate continued as some members of the Black Caucus pushed for Villegas to take over the Zoning Committee and Ald. David Moore (17th) to replace Villegas as Economic Development Chair.

Lawson’s plan to anoint two of his fellow freshman Council members as vice-chairs also alienated veteran alderpersons.

On Wednesday, Lawson hoped to try again, using a parliamentary maneuver to force an immediate vote on the long-stalled reorganization. But Lawson’s plan unraveled during negotiations aimed at breaking the stalemate.

Ald. Bill Conway (34th) introduced a revised reorganization brokered by Black Caucus Chair Stephanie Coleman (16th) that anointed Villegas as Zoning chair and Curtis to replace Villegas.

Villegas thanked his colleagues for their confidence in him and applauded Lawson for holding down the fort twice — once after Zoning chair Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) was forced out over allegations of manhandling an aldermanic colleague, and again after the retirement of Burnett.

Villegas vowed to work together with Lawson to “make sure that we’re putting forth policies that help developers build quickly so we can realize the much-needed property tax revenue needed to fund government service.”

“To those of you that didn’t support me, I want to work with you to figure out how we can continue to move the city forward,” Villegas said. "And you have my commitment that we’ll work together to make sure that projects in everyone’s ward are getting done expeditiously so we can make sure we address affordable housing, market-rate and every other type of building.”

Johnson took Wednesday's defeat in stride.

"The city of Chicago is open for business. We're just not for sale," Johnson said. "I'm going to work with anyone who's committed to helping us build the safest, most affordable city in America, whether you call yourself a progressive or whether you call yourself something else. I don't get hung up in those particular ideological titles because I've seen people who have self-proclaimed to be something and they're not."