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The guy will go down with his (quite leaky) ship before doing anything constructive for the city/state/region.

I used to wonder who was actually making the decisions in the Poopy Pants White House: now I gotta wonder who is pulling the strings behind idjit Brandon...


Editorial: City Hall is chaotic. So Chicago’s ‘sister agencies’ like CHA are learning to stand on their own.

The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune

For as long as Chicagoans can remember, t he mayor has dominated governance of this city; other municipal bodies, whether technically controlled by the mayor or not, routinely have bowed to his or her dictates.

The Chicago Transit Authority is a sister agency of the city of Chicago, overseen by a board. But in practice the mayor has been its boss. Likewise the Chicago Park District. Likewise the Chicago Housing Authority, which is budgeted this year to spend $1.4 billion and shelters more than 63,000 households.

But we’re not seeing the CHA bow to the mayor anymore. On the contrary we’re seeing it rebuff the mayor’s demands.

Mayor Brandon Johnson seeks to overturn the CHA board’s decision last month to hire Keith Pettigrew, executive director of Washington, D.C.’s public housing authority, as CHA CEO. That vote occurred without Johnson’s advance knowledge, and the mayor quickly moved afterward to replace CHA Chairman Matthew Brewer with Jawanza Malone, one of the mayor’s few allies on the board.

Johnson argues that the board under Brewer violated state law and its own rules in how it chose Pettigrew and that the action therefore is “invalid and without legal effect.” He threatens to take the board to court.

Sound familiar?

As mayor, Johnson has found himself repeatedly in situations where his choices for executive or City Council posts are opposed — and opposed successfully. Most notable among them were his tortured efforts through much of 2024 to fire Pedro Martinez, then CEO of Chicago Public Schools. Martinez rebuffed the mayor, going so far as take the mayor to court. Martinez ultimately stayed on against Johnson’s wishes as CPS head for nearly a year and finally was fired per the provisions of his employment contract at the end of June 2025.

We spoke with Brewer, and he’s confident the CHA board acted appropriately and that any legal efforts Johnson takes to invalidate the hiring will fail. But, more importantly than the political fallout from yet more City Hall dysfunction, the hiring of a permanent CEO for CHA will give the agency the stability it needs. And in this city at this time, stability requires gaining a measure of independence.

The CHA has been without a CEO for 17 months. Angela Hurlock served as interim CEO until September of last year. The board then created the role of operating chairman, enabling Brewer to keep his board chairmanship while also effectively running the agency on a temporary basis.

In the meantime, the mayor’s choice as CHA CEO, former Ald. Walter Burnett, can’t currently be hired even if the board acquiesced because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development flagged potential conflict-of-interest problems with Burnett’s taking on the role. HUD’s concerns with Burnett remain in effect.

So, what is Johnson doing here? Who exactly is served by a mayoral hissy fit over not being able to install an ally in this highly paid post?

It surely isn’t the residents of public housing in Chicago. Their representatives on the Central Advisory Council, an elected body meant to reflect the views of tenants, overwhelmingly endorsed Pettigrew.

Assume Johnson succeeds. Precisely what would be accomplished by Johnson nixing Pettigrew’s hiring, given that Burnett remains off-limits?

“We go back to not having a CEO,” Brewer told us. “That to them is a victory.”

Exactly.

The us-versus-them mentality that animates Johnson’s administration takes priority over all else, including the welfare of more than 60,000 families living, as Brewer said, “on a very thin line between stability and instability.”

Pettigrew is supremely qualified. He grew up in public housing in Washington, D.C., and has held senior roles at public housing authorities in New Orleans, Alexandria, Virginia, and his hometown. He’s a lawyer and has an excellent relationship with officials at HUD, Brewer said. That’s no small matter given that HUD provides more than 90% of CHA’s funding.

Pettigrew emerged as a top candidate about a year ago in a national search for a new CEO, a process the mayor supported. It was only shortly after the board had narrowed the possibilities to two, one of them being Pettigrew, that Johnson’s administration told commissioners it wanted Burnett, Brewer said.

Serving as vice mayor, Burnett, 62, had been a critical Johnson supporter on a fractious City Council and was seeking to hand his aldermanic seat to son Walter “Red” Burnett while gravitating to the more lucrative CHA job, which would have paid him more than $300,000 annually. One part of the plan worked; Red Burnett got his dad’s 27th Ward post. HUD has been keeping the other part of the plan from succeeding, due to Burnett and his wife having ownership interest in properties that are leased to tenants with housing vouchers.

Johnson complains often about his mayoral predecessors, but his maneuver to reward the Burnett family was old-school Chicago Way.

And here is where we see the lesson for Chicago’s future in this latest embarrassment for the mayor. Johnson is one of the most politically weak mayors this city has seen in generations, and the effects are being felt throughout city government. At Chicago Public Schools, a fully elected board will take control from the mayor beginning next year; while he currently retains nominal control through a board where the majority are his appointees, his CPS priorities nonetheless have been rebuffed repeatedly. At CHA, Johnson’s weak standing with the City Council has kept two of his board appointees stuck in the Rules Committee, which helped to ensure the overwhelming 7-2 CHA board vote to hire Pettigrew.

We don’t know yet whether Johnson will stand for reelection. But no matter who becomes Chicago’s next mayor, Chicagoans should get used to a city without a boss. These “sister agencies” are learning how to function on their own.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/editorial-city-hall-chaotic-chicago-100000399.html


Just preternaturally stooopid. Who in TF is going to hire him for a real job after this??