Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to appoint a top City Council ally to helm the Chicago Park District, making good on his promise to reset his administration by elevating loyal faces midway through his term.
The mayor will recommend Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, to be Parks superintendent after Rosa Escareno submitted her resignation letter Wednesday, Ramirez-Rosa told the Tribune.
Escareno’s exit, effective March 31, will cap off four years of leading the Park District and came in the wake of Johnson’s earlier warnings this month of a firing spree apparently focused on holdovers from past mayoral administrations.
“Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa is a passionate public servant with a decade of municipal leadership experience and a successful track record of building coalitions and delivering significant community investments,” Johnson said in a statement. “My administration is committed to investing in our city’s residents and communities. Making our Park District more equitable and accessible, particularly in disinvested communities, is critical to improving the quality of life for all Chicagoans. Carlos is an effective leader and will be a strong Superintendent of the Chicago Park District.”
The Park District Board of Commissioners on Friday will approve Ramirez-Rosa’s appointment, effective April 1. His ascension would further increase progressive representation within Johnson’s leadership team, as the mayor hinted was the goal in his Feb. 10 remarks.
“If you ain’t with us, you just gotta go,” Johnson said then.
It would also open up a midterm vacancy in City Council that provides Johnson his first chance to exercise his mayoral powers to appoint an alderman. And while the mayor will surely seek a candidate who shares his progressive, pro-labor stripes, Ramirez-Rosa’s departure would likely shake up the power dynamic in City Council, especially on the left.
The three-term Logan Square alderman would be vacating his seat during an uncharted moment for the progressive faction of City Council that he’s invested much time in shaping.
The first Democratic Socialist elected to the body in 2015, Ramirez-Rosa quickly carved a space as the body’s most outspoken voice on the left — and a consistent thorn in the side of his moderate colleagues.
Five more Democratic Socialists joined him on the council in 2019.
Four years later, Johnson’s historic 2023 election would pave the way for Ramirez-Rosa to rise to the plum gigs of Zoning committee chair and the mayor’s floor leader, the latter of which is tasked with whipping support for his agenda. Ramirez-Rosa helped secure a trio of early wins for the administration that summer in abolishing tipped minimum wage, expanding paid time off and placing Bring Chicago Home on the March 2024 ballot.
But he would only benefit from half a year of being the mayor’s chief proxy on council. In November, he resigned from his two leadership roles after Ald. Emma Mitts and other colleagues accused him of using his Zoning post to intimidate them — allegations he denied but grew into a political liability for Johnson.
“I felt like I was back in the south,” Mitts, currently the council’s longest serving Black female alderman, said on the floor during an emotional debate over whether to formally censure Ramirez-Rosa.
She later voted against the item — which would have made Ramirez-Rosa the first Chicago alderman to be censured in modern history. Instead, the body deadlocked 24-24, and Johnson had to come to his ally’s rescue and cast his first tie-breaker as mayor.
Since then, Ramirez-Rosa has remained one of the mayor’s most reliable council votes. That the sun is apparently setting on his aldermanic career less than two years after he rose to the most influential perches in City Council spells a remarkable sea change for not just Ramirez-Rosa’s political trajectory but also the fragility of Johnson’s progressive coalition that ushered him into office.
The move to the Park District would also open up the City Council’s first midterm vacancy in three years and allow Johnson his first mayoral appointment to the body. Whoever is tapped to replace Ramirez-Rosa would need a majority of aldermanic approval.
Chicago is one of the few Illinois governments where — depending on timing — the mayor has the power to appoint replacements for City Council vacancies rather than hold a special election, thanks to a 1978 state law. Mayors have often wielded that tool for allies on the council to time retirements strategically so they can be replaced with another friendly face.
Lightfoot made four aldermanic appointments to fill vacancies upon retirements or, in the 11th Ward’s case, Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson’s federal tax fraud conviction booting him from holding office. But those four appointees found that being tied to an unpopular incumbent was a liability when it came time to run for a full term in 2023.
Ramirez-Rosa has had an eye on posts outside the council for a while. He ran as Daniel Biss’s running mate in the 2018 governor’s race, but was dropped from the ticket over his support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. And he ran for former U.S. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez’s open seat that same year before withdrawing to endorse Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
One of the youngest aldermen elected to City Council, Ramirez-Rosa played a key role in sharpening the current sanctuary city ordinance that prevents Chicago police from cooperating with federal immigration cases during Republican President Donald Trump’s first time. It was that policy he was seeking to protect when he landed in hot water over blocking Mitts from entering the council chambers.
He has been a staunch voice on police reform, including as a supporter of the “defund the police” movement in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd’s police murder in Minneapolis and, before that, the “No Cop Academy” campaign to stop the creation of a Chicago police training facility on the West Side.
Ramirez-Rosa is a longtime ally of the Chicago Teachers Union, which has contributed to his political fund over the years. He spoke out in support of the labor group throughout its struggle with former Mayor Lori Lightfoot over returning to in-person classes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
