For almost three years, Raed Mansour has been the city’s top official investigating two major health threats to Chicagoans: air pollution and extreme heat.
Moving ahead on a plan to install around 140 air pollution sensors across the city — at a cost of almost $1 million — Mansour invited more than a dozen community members from some of the most-polluted neighborhoods to see the devices and help assemble them at a North Side city warehouse in early November.
But on Nov. 7, just one day before the unpacking of the monitors, the group was told Mansour is no longer working for the city, a significant setback for the first large city-run, community-focused pollution monitoring effort. Mansour was forced out in a political move that is exposing a division over Mayor Brandon Johnson’s public health departments’ priorities, particularly related to the environment.
The air program was expected to get up and running early next year, a goal that is now indefinitely delayed, though Johnson’s top health official says it will get done. The sensors detect fine particle pollution and nitrogen dioxide, which is a common pollutant from car, trucks and factories.
Mansour’s ouster is the type of behind-the-scenes politics that would’ve been largely overlooked had it not been flagged by community advocates who knew how integral he was to an air-quality assessment that they deemed important. The devices are a step toward understanding how air pollution can significantly fluctuate in low-income communities of color.
“Those monitors could be utilized in our community rather than collecting dust,” says Cheryl Johnson, executive director of People for Community Recovery in Riverdale on the Far Southeast Side. “When the city makes the commitment to provide resources, make it happen. In our community, we’ve been waiting over 30 years for air monitors.”
Johnson said her team had an “excellent” relationship with Mansour and is sad to see him go.
Low-income communities in Chicago and across the United States have been hit the hardest by bad air quality, leading to respiratory illnesses and lower life expectancies than more affluent areas. While city health officials dismiss the concerns about the delay of the program, advocates say the monitors are critical to informing elected officials on a life-threatening problem.
Trust is broken
For Alfredo Romo, executive director of McKinley Park group Neighbors for Environmental Justice, advocacy is seriously personal. A survivor of a rare cancer, his Southwest Side community is inundated with pollution from large diesel-fueled trucks that travel to and from dozens of warehouses and intermodal facilities. Air quality is bad, he says.
Romo has been hesitant to trust city officials, though he agreed to partner on the air project, he says.
That trust in the city was broken after Mansour was pushed out.
“We are community partners in this project,” Romo says. “I’m troubled.”
Mansour resigned, though emails and interviews reveal that the city’s public health department officials forced him out after a disagreement with Dr. Horace Smith, a political appointee, during a public health board meeting in October.
The friction began with a presentation to an advisory panel, the Chicago Board of Health, Oct. 30. Mansour presented an already-funded plan that involves participation from at least half a dozen community organizations representing Little Village, McKinley Park, multiple Southeast Side neighborhoods and other areas affected by air pollution.
Smith, a pediatrics specialist, Bronzeville pastor and longtime board member who Johnson nominated to lead the health panel, questioned Mansour on the program, asking why it was necessary and suggested money could be better spent elsewhere.
When Mansour said he disagreed with Smith, the staffer was admonished by Fikirkte Wagaw, first deputy commissioner of the health department.
From there, records show another high-ranking official, Deputy Commissioner Maribel Chavez-Torres, demanded a meeting with Mansour over “inappropriate” comments at the meeting. Assistant commissioner Dave Graham was copied on the message.
Chicago Public Health Commissioner Olusimbo Ige sent an email to the board apologizing for “harm that the interaction may have caused.” Ige also called Smith to apologize, according to Smith.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Smith said in an interview, relaying what he told Ige. “She said, ‘He’s going to probably resign,’” Smith said, referring to Ige and Mansour.
Smith said his comments at the board meeting weren’t meant to diminish the need for air monitoring. He said he was expressing an opinion that he feels there are other important health issues, including access to fresh food and medical care, that the city could fund.
“My point is if you ask Horace Smith how should money be utilized, air monitoring would not be my first priority,” he said.
Smith, 75, is the longest-serving member of the health board and the only person Johnson has nominated to continue. Near the end of Johnson’s campaign for mayor in early 2023, he appeared with Smith at his church, Apostolic Faith Church, 3823 S. Indiana Ave.
As a board member and potentially the panel’s next president, Smith gives advice to both the mayor and Ige on public health matters.
“For me, it sounded like a healthy exchange,” said board member Carmen Vergara, who was present for the exchange between Smith and Mansour. “We need to hear from the staff, and these are the kind of conversations we should be having.”
Mansour forced out
Emails, obtained through open records requests from Anthony Moser with Neighbors for Environmental Justice and shared with the Sun-Times, show Mansour was under pressure from his public health bosses before he resigned.
Forcing Mansour out, in turn, halted the air monitoring, Moser says.
“It’s just a real head-scratcher,” Moser says. “I don’t understand why they were so adamant about hitting the brakes” on the air sensors.
Ige, who was appointed by Johnson last year for her expertise on mental health, says the air monitoring will go forward, though she cannot say when.
“We are committed to a participatory process, but we have to map all the stakeholders that need to be a part of this process. We want to make sure that people understand what these data will be used for,” Ige says. “We’re not worried about the work continuing because one staff person transitioned.”
In an interview, Ige also referred to the monitoring as a “pilot” program with a short shelf life.
“We have one or two years to pilot this and say ‘well, is this a good way to get communities more involved in environmental issues?’”
The air monitors network is actually written into a settlement agreement between the city and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development over a civil rights complaint that accused Chicago of environmental racism.
The air monitoring project has been underway for two years with the help of at least half a dozen community organizations.
The argument for air monitoring is to identify areas of the city that are overburdened with pollution and then to find solutions to help residents in those areas, often low-income communities of color on the West Side and across the South Side.
The air sensors will be the first across the city since Microsoft ended its 100-monitor network in March 2023. The tech giant gave no reason for ending what was deemed a pilot project.
Having learned from Microsoft’s experience, Mansour worked with community groups to get their input. For instance, the Microsoft network was limited in parts of the city covered and did not provide monitoring on the heavily industrial Southeast Side.
It was a unique collaboration, according to those involved.
Air monitors are necessary to address serious air quality issues in Chicago, says Dr. Howard Ehrman, a former assistant health commissioner under Mayor Harold Washington.
“That’s part of fixing the problem,” he says.
Ehrman, who watched a livestream of the October meeting during Mansour’s presentation, said he witnessed a “dialogue between the two that was strong but nothing inappropriate.”
He says he’s glad that Ige is committing to continuing the program and he urges community members to hold her accountable.
Air, heat and trees
Mansour’s role at the city extended beyond air quality.
He was the health department’s lead on studying extreme heat, which scientists have attributed to climate change, and he was instrumental in planting thousands of trees. Mansour worked with multiple city departments to plant more trees, especially in areas that had been barren for decades.
Mansour declined to comment for the article but provided a statement saying that he was proud of the work on air and other issues with community participation.
“This work, like the heat and tree planting initiatives I was asked to co-lead on behalf of the city, was a collaborative community-driven effort focused on addressing environmental disparities in our most vulnerable communities,” the statement said. “I was humbled and privileged to work on these projects that the community and the city entrusted me with and turn the voice of community concerns into action together.”
Daniel Horton, an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Climate Change Research Group, says Mansour’s work on air quality put Chicago in a position to be a leader among U.S. cities in tracking pollution in poor areas.
“The loss is a huge blow to better understanding and protecting the public health of the people of Chicago,” says Horton, who also worked closely with Mansour on understanding how intense summer heat affects parts of the city differently.
Johnson has been advocating for cleaner air for decades. She inherited her job as an environmental advocate from her mother Hazel Johnson, a legendary activist.
The air sensors, she says, are absolutely necessary toward fixing the environmental racism in Chicago’s Black and Brown neighborhoods.
“The goal was to make sure industry is in compliance,” Johnson says. “Anytime you interrupt my quality of life because I can’t breathe — that’s a problem.”
