The Chicago Park District Board on Friday ratified Mayor Brandon Johnson’s choice of Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) as Superintendent and CEO of the city’s parks system.
As the Sun-Times reported this week, Ramirez-Rosa replaces Rosa Escareno, who by leaving the post avoids being pushed out by a mayor who has openly declared his intention to sweep out department heads, agency chiefs and their deputies inherited from Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
“If you ain’t with us, you just gotta go,” the mayor said earlier this year.
Friday’s emergency meeting was triggered by Escareno’s decision to beat Johnson to the punch. Her resignation takes effect March 31.
To ensure a smooth transition and give Ramirez-Rosa at least a few weeks to learn the ropes from Escareno, the park board needed to act quickly on the mayor’s appointment.
Ramirez-Rosa sat beaming in the front row at the Park District’s new headquarters at 4830 W. Western as four of the park board’s seven members signed off on his appointment. Ramirez-Rosa starts the job April 1.
They also authorized board President Dr. Marlon Everett to negotiate contract terms with Ramirez-Rosa for his
salary, benefits, performance goals and evaluations, and other employment terms. Escareno’s final salary was $253,767-a-year.
Ramirez-Rosa did not address the audience. His marching orders from the mayor are clear:
- Make certain that Chicago parks are “safe spaces for young people” and “expand youth opportunities,” in part by “growing public-private partnerships.”
- Eliminate homeless encampments in the parks by connecting unhoused Chicagoans living in those tent cities with permanent, supportive housing.
- Ensure that there are “equitable facilities” in all Chicago parks.
- Speed capital improvements in the parks, in part, by eliminating the backlog of “deferred maintenance” that has left too many fieldhouses without air-conditioning during the summer months or with playing fields in such poor shape, athletes risk injury.
Ramirez-Rosa takes the job as parks chief without any management experience, and will be tasked with running a district that oversees 2,000 employees, 600 parks with 8,800 acres of green space and 26 miles of lakefront beaches.
After the Sun-Times reported Johnson’s decision, the Anti-Defamation League tweeted its opposition to Ramirez-Rosa getting the job.
“Again, @ChicagosMayor has appointed someone with extreme views and a history of open hostility toward the overwhelming majority of Chicago’s Jewish community,” the ADL wrote, in a statement released on X. “If the Mayor really wants to build bridges with the Jewish community, this isn’t how to do it.”
In 2017, then Democratic gubernatorial candidate Daniel Biss picked Ramirez-Rosa, seen as a rising star of progressive politics, as his running mate. But then he dropped him over Ramirez-Rosa’s support for the movement to punish and isolate Israel with “Boycott, Divest and Sanction.”
It’s a position Ramirez-Rosa has consistently maintained throughout the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, encouraging Johnson to cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of a non-binding resolution demanding a cease-fire. The mayor’s vote alienated the Council’s lone Jewish member and prominent Jewish community leaders, creating a rift that continues.
On Friday, Ramirez-Rosa said he is “committed to hearing what the ADL has to say in terms of how I can be a better partner in their work.”
“White nationalism and the threats that the Jewish community is facing in this moment is very scary. We’ve seen the way synagogues have been threatened with terrible violence. We’ve seen horrible violence against Jews in the very recent past,” he said.
If he has done anything to offend the Jewish community, Ramirez-Rosa said he is willing to learn and change.
“I want to speak with them to better understand their perspective because I want to address mistakes that I’ve made,” he said.