Park District Superintendent Rosa Escareno resigns — on her own terms

Another one of the holdovers inherited by Mayor Brandon Johnson is out — this time on her own terms.

Chicago Park District General Superintendent and CEO Rosa Escareno resigned on Wednesday, effective March 31, which could pave the way for Johnson to appoint Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) his former City Council floor leader, as Escareno’s replacement. Ramirez-Rosa refused to comment on that possibility.

In November 2023, Ramirez-Rosa was forced to resign from his dual role as Johnson’s hand-picked Zoning Committee chair and City Council floor leader after being accused of bullying and intimidating colleagues. At the time, he was trying to prevent a Council vote on a non-binding resolution that would have allowed voters to weigh in on whether Chicago should remain a sanctuary city.

Rumors about Johnson’s desire to replace Escareno with Ramirez-Rosa have been flying for months.

It started long before the mayor said he should have cleaned house faster when he took office and now plans to correct that mistake by sending people packing.

“If you ain’t with us, you just gotta go,” he said then.

Escareno wasn’t about to wait around for Johnson to drop the other shoe.

She dropped it for him.

“It has been one of the greatest experiences of my professional career. This is the place where you can actually come and literally see the services you do directly impacting people who live across the street. I’m overjoyed about all the great work that we’ve done here,” Escareno, 57, told the Sun-Times.

“The handwriting for me has never been on the wall. … I have been very open with this administration about my intentions. It is my decision. I think it is the right time. We’ve done a lot and I feel good about knowing that I came in at a very critical time for the organization and that I am leaving this organization in a much better place than where I found it.”

Escareno runs an agency that employs hundreds of young people and provides recreational programming for thousands of others.

But she has yet to meet privately with a mayor who claims that creating jobs and opportunities for young people is among his paramount concerns.

Even so, Escareno said she has tried to be the “strongest partner I can be to the mayor’s team.”

“Youth programming and prioritizing teens in the city are a priority for me. That’s why I came here: to put young people first,” she said.

“We also sheltered new arrivals and worked very closely with the mayor’s team. Some people are forgetting about that. ”

With busloads of migrants arriving daily, Johnson chose to close Pfield houses in South and West Side neighborhoods and use them as temporary housing. The move infuriated some local residents and exacerbated longstanding political tensions between Black and Hispanic residents.

“It was a challenging time. I had to be out there working with the community, letting them know that their services were not gonna go away,” Escareno recalled.

“So we ramped up services in other areas. We diverted programs to other places. It was a lot of work. But the goal was, how do we partner with the mayor on this really important task while at the same time ensuring that we are not disregarding the needs of our residents?”

Escareno joined the district in October 2021, not long after retiring as commissioner of the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection. The district was in the midst of an investigation into rampant sexual harassment and abuse against lifeguards at the city’s beaches and pools.

She replaced disgraced Supt. Mike Kelly, forced out for his role in mishandling that investigation, ending his decade-long career at the park district and becoming one of about 40 employees disciplined.

Escareno cleaned house while also rebuilding a depleted staff and restarting programming shut down during the pandemic.

She worked diligently to re-establish public trust shaken by the lifeguard scandal, in part by ordering re-training and creating an Office of Prevention and Accountability.

“That’s one of the proudest accomplishments of things that I have done here: Talking to parents. Meeting with lifeguards day and night over the first couple months, then really coming up with initiatives that would make this organization, stronger, safer and accountable,” Escareno said.

Escareno’s resignation ends a remarkable 33-year career that began straight out of high school, as an administrative assistant in the Office of Budget and Management.

The woman whose widowed mother of six brought her to Chicago from Mexico at age 8 earned her bachelor’s degree from Loyola and her master’s in communications from Northwestern while serving under four mayors.

In that time, she held jobs ranging from administrative assistant and deputy press secretary to deputy chief operating officer and director of media relations for the Chicago Fire Department.

Now, she’s finally ready for the next chapter in her life.

“I serve the public. Since last year, there’s been ongoing conversations around how we move forward. My intentions have been nothing but being the strongest partner I can be to the mayor’s team,” Escareno said.

“Maybe if I wasn’t doing a good job, he would call me and tell me I wasn’t.”