Mayor Brandon Johnson has reversed course on major policy moves twice in the last few weeks.
In a sense, that’s a welcome development. For his predecessor, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the first instinct when faced with facts she did not favor was to drop her gloves and fight.
Johnson has shown a willingness to change gears, which is appealing in its way. But the need for him to do so twice in as many weeks also is likely a warning that the upfront work he and his staff are doing is not where it needs to be.
The first reversal, involving the establishment of an industrial-scale tent shelter at a park on the South Side, was disastrously handled. On the second, involving public access to City Council meetings, the mayor did better. At least Johnson appears to be learning as he goes.
In the matter of the migrant shelter mishap, Johnson found himself on the wrong side of an issue, stood his ground too long, then clumsily handled his about-face.
From the time Johnson first set his sights on Brighton Park as a prospective encampment site for thousands of migrants, environmental groups warned of ecological dangers lurking there. Even as a city consultant’s report found mercury, arsenic and other toxins on soil where a smelter once operated, Johnson dug in.
The mayor abandoned the Brighton Park plan only after Gov. J.B. Pritzker pulled $65 million in state funding. The loss of state money made the proposed encampment financially infeasible, so Johnson had no choice.
[ David Greising: Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. J.B. Pritzker can be at odds — as long as they do their jobs ]
The mayor never did explain the parameters of his decisions — first, to stick with the site even after the health risks were clear and then to abandon it. Instead, we got beside-the-point rhetoric from Johnson. Something about what a mistake it would be to fail to plan for migrant housing in the first place.
On that, everyone can agree, especially the migrants who have spent months sleeping at Chicago police stations and O’Hare International Airport. What they wouldn’t give for a city with a plan.
Gravel remains at the now-closed migrant tent encampment project in the 3700 block of South California Avenue in Chicago's Brighton Park neighborhood on Dec. 14, 2023. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
One lesson the mayor and city can take away from this one has to do with the cost of indecision. Amid the mess, it emerged that the city spent nearly $1 million on its ultimately useless conversion of the site.
In his defense of that dead-end expenditure, Johnson allowed that the money was not wasted altogether, because the 9 acres at 38th Street and California Avenue now are prepared for future use.
Which raises a simple question: For what kind of future use? As a Superfund site maybe?
The second major shift offers at least some hope that the mayor is learning as he goes. In the matter affecting public participation in City Council meetings, Johnson let the facts persuade him and was able to exit his first, ill-chosen position with a measure of grace.
We all know City Council meetings have gotten out of hand lately. Debates over the immigrant problem and Israel’s war with Hamas at times have bordered on chaos and potentially even physical harm to the public and elected officials alike.
Protesters on the City Council floor during a meeting at City Hall on Dec.13, 2023. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
But the city response was over the top: an unprecedented move to require advance registration for the City Council chamber’s second-floor gallery, relegating many participants to a glass-enclosed, third-floor quarters with virtually no direct view of the aldermen on the council floor.
This prompted the Better Government Association — me, to be precise — to write a letter informing the mayor that his decision likely violated the Open Meetings Act and surely was an overreach. Effective enforcement of long-standing rules of decorum, which have proved effective from the raucous racism of the so-called Council Wars on up through the present, could very well manage the problem.
The mayor could have fought. But he likely expected a BGA lawsuit if he did, with a strong open-government case, I might add. Instead, Johnson retracted the new policy and returned to the old rules. The one council meeting held since then was peaceable, affirming the mayor ultimately made the right call.
There’s a school of thought that the retreat also delivered a political benefit to Johnson. After all, this progressive mayor has more in common with the type of people who crowd City Council chambers to protest than his political opponents do. As a practical matter, a noisy, shoulder-to-shoulder gallery is more likely than not to play to Johnson’s benefit.
What comes next? Well, perhaps Johnson can learn from experience. Specifically, he needs to avoid missteps in the first place. Stronger support in the Law Department, on his communications team, in intergovernmental affairs and in other places in city government where expertise is needed would help him a lot. More than six months into his term, there still are too many open positions and too little experience in key roles.
Reversing field while holding public office is extraordinarily difficult. It’s rare that mayors or other elected officials can do it well.
Credit Johnson with the flexibility to change course — out of necessity, yes, but the about-faces were still welcome.
Still, there is only so much to be gained from gracefully reversing course. The mayor and the city will be better off if the Johnson administration can develop the capacity to just make the right calls from the start.
David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
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