Lightfoot proposes new operating rules for City Council

Livestream City Council committee meetings to shine the light on the place where the real legislative work gets done.

Prevent aldermen with conflicts of interest not just from voting on the matter, but also from taking part in or presiding over the debate.

Transfer control over tax increment financing (TIF) subsidies from the Finance Committee to the Committee on Economic and Capital Development, which is run by the new mayor’s City Council floor leader.

Wednesday’s first test of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s legislative muscle is more than just a vote on her new cast of City Council leaders, starring Ald. Scott Waguespack (32^nd) as Finance Committee chairman.

Lightfoot also wants to change the City Council’s operating rules.

The most important change is the decision to livestream committee meetings after years of just talking about it. Council meetings already are livestreamed.

Rules drafted by the Lightfoot administration state that council committee meetings “shall be broadcasted or aired via the use of a transmission by the internet and/or by any other available transmissions process” subject to certain parameters.

The subject of the broadcast “shall be confined to the individual recognized by” the presiding officer, except in “those circumstances in which the debate or discussions is directed toward a subject located in another area” of the Council chambers or hearing room.

In that case, “The field of view may alternate between speaker and subject or include both.”

Recordings would be posted on the city clerk’s website for “at least four years” and maintained “for a period of time” after that, “consistent with the Local Records Act.”

Shortly before Lightfoot took office, Rule 14, which governs aldermanic conflicts of interest, was changed to require aldermen who recuse themselves more than three times over a one-year period to either resolve the conflict or forfeit their committee chairmanships.

The change was aimed squarely at now-deposed Finance Committee Chairman Edward Burke (14^th), who was fined $2,000 by the Board of Ethics for presiding over a Finance Committee hearing on Jan. 12, 2018 when aldermen debated and approved a $5.5 million subsidy to Illinois’ largest Catholic health system, in spite of Presence Health’s anti-abortion policy.

Lightfoot’s proposal goes a step further.

It requires every member present when a question is stated from the chair to cast a vote “unless excused by the Council.”

The revised Rule 14 further states that aldermen so excused “may not in a meeting of either the City Council or one of its committees preside over any hearings or participate in any debate, discussion or vote, including conversation with other members of the City Council regarding the matter associated with the recusal.”

The decision to strengthen the Economic Development Committee at the expense of the Finance Committee is a surprise blow to Waguespack.

Under Lightfoot’s rules, the Finance Committee would retain jurisdiction over: “tax levies; industrial revenue bonds, general obligation bonds and revenue bond programs; revenue orders, ordinances and resolutions; the financing of municipal services and capital developments and matters generally affecting the Department of Finance, the city comptroller, city treasurer and solicitation of funds for charitable or other purposes on the streets and other public places.”

The Economic Development Committee would preside over matters that “directly affect the economic and technological expansion and development of the city and economic attraction to the city.”

Its jurisdiction would include: “financing of economic development subsidies, including special service areas, tax incentives and special assessments.”

Waguespack said he’s OK with the change, as well as with Lightfoot’s decision to reduce the Finance Committee’s budget from at least $2.3 million to $700,000.

“If we’re spreading that around, that’s fine — as long as whoever gets it is cracking down on TIFs and [special service areas] to have tighter rules on how they’re used,” Waguespack said.

“I’m still gonna ask questions. No big deal.”

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36^th), the Lightfoot floor leader who will double as Economic Development chairman, said TIF subsidies like the record $1.6 billion recently awarded to “the 78” and Lincoln Yards mega-developments “should have been in the Economic Development Committee all along.”

“This is a realignment of responsibilities” to correct a mistake, Villegas said.

Earlier this month, Lightfoot denied that livestreaming committee meetings was an attempt to embarrass aldermen and get them to start showing up.

“Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t [bolster attendance, but] it’s not about embarrassing them,” she said.

“It’s about opening up government and making it transparent to people in the city who are funding the government. They have a right to know what we’re doing and what we’re up to.”