Aldermen Send Rahm a Strongly Worded Letter

By Chuck Sudo in News on Nov 2, 2011 2:20PM

Shortly after Richard Daley announced he wouldn't be running for another term as mayor, aldermen in City Council jutted out their chests and proclaimed his successor would have to work with them, instead of relying on them to be a rubber stamp.

Yesterday 28 aldermen sent a letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel asking for a meeting with Budget Director Alexandra Holt on proposed cuts to library staffing, 911 dispatching, graffiti removal and public health centers, and proposed fee hikes for water and sewer service and city sticker fees for SUV and larger vehicles.

The letter is the first real sign of opposition by City Council to Emanuel in his short mayoralty. The number of aldermen who signed the letter is also two more than the number Emanuel needs to pass his budget. The 28 are looking for ways to restore the proposed staffing cuts. Freshman Ald. John Arena (45th) said, “This is a letter to [Emanuel] asking for him to come to the table and have a conversation — not it being, ‘My way or the highway.”

Arena continued. “What are our priorities as a city? Libraries and public health generally affect the lowest economic strata. There’s been a clear outcry that we should protect those things.” 36th Ward Ald. Nicholas Sopsato, who helped lead the letter effort, said his constituents were overwhelmingly concerned about the library cuts. Librarians and parents marched to City Hall yesterday with petitions opposing the cuts to library staffing.

Holt responded to the letter by saying the budget negotiations are an ongoing process and that Emanuel's administration was in discussions with aldermen to identify “trade-offs they’re interested in and where the revenues will come from to pay those.”