Former Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa laid out his plans for leading the Chicago Park District Wednesday, promising to work to help keep the Bears on the lakefront and to try to get people living in tents into housing before the city kicks them out of a Northwest Side park.
After focusing on a handful of Northwest Side neighborhoods on the City Council, Ramirez-Rosa as Park District CEO now manages a $600 million budget, 615 parks and high-stakes events like Lollapalooza, NASCAR and Riot Fest, not to mention continued negotiations around the Bears’ future at Soldier Field, which the district also owns.
Ramirez-Rosa didn’t touch on hot topics like the Bears or the future of NASCAR’s downtown race during his interview in front of a downtown lunch crowd with City Club of Chicago CEO Dan Gibbons. But he did promise to address the “hunger games” of summer park district camp registration for next year, spread improvements to park facilities equitably, and ensure the district is not “criminalizing poverty” when it responds to encampments in city parks.
Ramirez-Rosa told reporters after the event that he had an “introductory phone call” with Bears CEO Kevin Warren and said he is “committed to being a good partner” to the team while voicing his support for Mayor Brandon Johnson’s hopes for a domed stadium along the lakefront. He volunteered for “whatever role I can play” to help get the project off the ground.
“The proposal that was put forward ensures a net increase in public outdoor green space along the lakefront, and that’s a good thing,” Ramirez-Rosa told reporters of the domed stadium plan, which faces opposition from the advocacy group Friends of the Parks and indifference from state lawmakers.
Mayor Brandon Johnson and Warren announced their joint domed vision plans almost exactly a year ago. Warren, meanwhile, has not abandoned downtown plans, but kept his options open to move the team to Arlington Heights.
Those plans have so far gone nowhere in Springfield, which would need to authorize borrowing to fund the construction of a new stadium and likely additional funding for road and park work around it. Still, Ramirez-Rosa said he is “hopeful that Springfield will work with the city, with the Park District, and with the Bears to make this deal a reality.”
He declined to say whether he and Warren had discussed an extension of the Bears’ current lease and was similarly mum on NASCAR’s future in the city. The current contract doesn’t call for any races beyond 2025. Ramirez-Rosa only said he hoped “to be able to share those details when they’re ready to be shared.”
Ramirez-Rosa also said he had visited the tent encampment at Gompers Park during his first week on the job. Some families with kids playing in a baseball league in the park had called for a clear-out, prompting heated debates over safety and spurring the city and park officials to try connecting those tent residents with housing.
Ramirez-Rosa said the district “identified areas within the park that are not impacted by programming, planned capital infrastructure work or flooding… where individuals could temporarily relocate to while we work to connect them with housing.”
“If we are pushing people out of the park and not getting them into housing, then we are just shuffling where people are camping at,” Ramirez-Rosa said. The district hopes to “get as many people as possible into housing prior to May 12,” when park enforcement efforts will begin.
Despite his lack of prior executive experience, Ramirez-Rosa, a progressive ally and appointee of Mayor Brandon Johnson, will earn $253,000 a year, the same salary as his predecessor, Rosa Escareno.
According to his contract, received through an open records request, Ramirez-Rosa is also entitled to a Park District car or a $500 monthly car allowance and may be “required to undergo continuing education in topics such as Managing Personnel Policies, Creating A Respectful Workplace and other such topics that help drive employee morale and conduct” and “may avail himself” of other continuing education opportunities.
Failure “to complete continuing education as required by the Board” could result in termination for “just cause,” according to the contract.
Ramirez-Rosa said the professional development language in the contract was “pretty standard,” and added he is “committed to participating in fellowships and other trainings… I’m a lifelong learner, so I’m very happy that my contract” includes language to ensure it.
The deal runs through the end of Johnson’s first term in the spring of 2027. Escareno did not have a contract, the Park District confirmed, but prior Superintendent Mike Kelly did.
Kelly’s agreement, WBEZ reported at the time, made it costly for the board to terminate him despite the sexual misconduct scandal that engulfed the Park District in 2021, because he was guaranteed eight months of pay after he was fired. Ramirez-Rosa’s contract provides a much smaller, three-month pay period after termination.
