If Chicago’s 50 City Council members received a grade for how often they showed up to required meetings and hearings at City Hall, the average alderman would get an D, according to a joint analysis by WBEZ and The Daily Line.

The average alderman showed up to just 65 percent of committee and City Council meetings between the start of the current term in 2015 and the end of last year, according to available attendance logs obtained through open records requests. Eight showed up less than half the time.

Next week, voters will decide which Chicago aldermen deserve another four-year term — and the six-figure, taxpayer-funded salary that comes with it.

Want to see how your alderman stacks up? Search your address here and scroll down to see how all 50 stacked up.

Traditionally, that job has been more associated with tree-trimming and garbage pickup than crafting city policy and watchdogging government. But every honorary street sign, zoning amendment, multi-billion dollar bond sale, airport lease agreement and tax hike must be approved by one of the City Council’s 16 committees before advancing to become law.

Still, some aldermen just don’t show up to the meetings where all of that happens.

“Some of my colleagues, they prefer to be show horses as opposed to work horses,” said Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th Ward, a freshman who had the council’s best attendance rate at nearly 95 percent.

While many aldermen complained of conflicting meetings schedules, those with the lowest attendance rates argue that trudging over to meetings at City Hall just isn’t the most vital part of the job.

“I don't really have to show up,” said powerful South Side Ald. Carrie Austin, 34th Ward, who had the council’s worst attendance rate at 34 percent, according to available records. Austin said she often listens in to what’s happening in the council chambers over the speaker system in her office. “And if my vote is that important, I do show up.”

In fact, it’s largely because of Austin that it’s impossible for voters to get the full picture of how many other aldermen don’t show up for committee meetings. To calculate aldermanic attendance rates, WBEZ and The Daily Line combed through nearly a thousand pages of monthly meeting reports from the start of the current term in June 2015 through December 2018.

All committees filed their attendance data with the City Clerk’s office — except for the Budget Committee, which Austin chairs. After weeks of stonewalling, WBEZ sued the committee in Cook County court to get the documents ahead of the Feb. 26 election. Ultimately, the committee produced only a quarter of the documents that it’s legally required to keep.

Poor attendance common among council veterans

Including Austin, eight aldermen attended less than half of the meetings they were supposed to: Leslie Hairston, 5th Ward, George Cardenas, 12th Ward, Howard Brookins, 21st Ward, Danny Solis, 25th Ward, Roberto Maldonado, 26th Ward, Pat O’Connor, 40th Ward, and Ameya Pawar, 47th Ward.



Maldonado cited the death of his wife as a reason for many of his absences.

But other aldermen said they view their role the same way old school ward bosses of The Machine days did: They’re the person you call when you want to start a new business, when a squirrel eats through your garbage can, or when the pothole outside your garage dings up your car.

Hairston, who represents parts of the South Shore neighborhood and Jackson Park, said courting development to her ward “creates a whole other job.” When asked about her 49 percent attendance record, she said her work on the massive Obama Presidential Center, the Tiger Woods golf course, and efforts to get a grocery store have kept her “very, very busy in the ward.”

“What I think is most important is to be in the ward doing the work that the people expect you to do,” Hairston said.

For Cardenas, from the McKinley Park neighborhood, the simple numbers don’t tell the whole story. He said looking at attendance is like basing a student’s aptitude on the frequency they show up to class.

“You could have a perfect attendance,” said Cardenas, who had a 41 percent attendance rate. “It doesn't mean you are there, there. I mean mentally there, you know what I mean?”

“What good would it do for [an alderman] to be 100 percent in committee meetings and 100 percent absent from his community?” he said.

In addition to busy schedules in the ward, the average alderman sits on seven committees, which often hold simultaneous meetings at City Hall.

“Obviously, I can’t be in two places at once,” said Ald. Proco Joe Moreno, 1st Ward, echoing a common refrain from aldermen.

Some aldermen blamed their absences on the pedestrian, hyper-local votes that clog the vast majority of the council’s legislative docket. Rogers Park Ald. Joe Moore, 49th Ward, is a nearly 30-year veteran of the City Council and has only attended about 51 percent of the meetings he was required to, according to the analysis.

Moore is chairman of the Housing Committee, and said he’s present for nearly all of its meetings. But he argues that he’s got better things to do than travel downtown to vote on a street light or stop sign for a colleague on the other side of the city.

“My top priority is serving my constituents. And sitting Downtown in a committee meeting on a bunch of ward-specific matters that have nothing to do with my ward — I don’t think is the best use of my time,” Moore said.

For Ravenswood Ald. Ameya Pawar, 47th Ward, who attended less than half the meetings he was required to attend, time is better spent on citywide public policy.

He is now running to become the city’s treasurer.

“I’m proud of my record and I personally don’t know that it makes a whole lot of sense to be voting on every single sidewalk cafe, stop sign, every minor adjustment that we make, and so I’ve been on the record of that,” he said.

Brookins and O’Connor declined to comment on the story. Solis did not respond to requests for comment. All three are committee chairs.

‘This is what we’re here to do’

The City Council has long been derided as a rubber stamp for the mayor’s agenda, a body where vote outcomes are predetermined by behind-the-scenes deals before legislation hits the council floor. Before every monthly City Council meeting, most legislative work is cooked up by the mayor’s office and handed down to committee chairmen to put before members for a vote.

Aldermen who more regularly show up to City Hall said committee meetings are the only time in the legislative process where aldermen can flex their power. They can make line edits, force entire rewrites of legislation, and invite local organizations and business groups to weigh in on new laws.

For aldermen with high attendance, even sitting through the mundane meetings is essential to what they believe it means to represent their ward.

“Most of the grunt work, the meat and potatoes of legislation-making happens in committees, that’s when you get to have more discussion, you get to hear more outside opinion,” said Lopez, the freshman alderman with the council’s highest attendance rate.



*Correction: Due to a typographical error, a previous version of this graphic included incorrect attendance rates for two aldermen. Michael Scott Jr.'s rate is 84 percent. John Arena's attendance rate is 73 percent.

Northwest Side Ald. Ariel Reboyras, 30th Ward, who chairs the Committee on Public Safety, attended 82 percent of the meetings he was supposed to over the past term. When constituents call and ask him whether he voted on a specific issue, he said he wants to be able to give them an answer.

“But if nothing else, this is what we’re here to do,” Reboyras said. “And if nothing else, we should attend the meetings. That’s what we get paid for.”

The type of work aldermen do – or can’t do – could be affected by who wins the race to become Chicago’s next mayor. Former White House Chief of Staff and U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, for example, has proposed cutting the City Council’s size by more than two-thirds, which would likely put pressure on aldermen to beef up their legislative roles and leave menial ward-related tasks to city staff.

And several candidates want to ban aldermen from holding outside jobs, following the corruption scandal involving once-powerful Ald. Ed Burke’s 14th Ward allegedly illegal efforts to hustle business for his private law practice.

“For me, this is my full time job,” said freshman Ald. Michael Scott Jr., 24th Ward, who had an 88 percent attendance rate. “I’m in the ward every day. I’m not one of those aldermen who don’t come to work, and when I’m called to be here to a committee meeting, I think it’s important to show up.”

But for now, City Council members must juggle the pressures of being a hyper-responsive “alley alderman” for constituents in their wards, and helping shape a city-wide agenda in committee rooms downtown.

One recent weekday, Moreno had just finished up chairing a meeting about economic development, at the same time the Finance Committee on which he also sits was taking big votes about workers compensation and a $1 million legal payout to the family of someone who died in police custody.

And then he got call on his cell phone: Someone in his ward was upset their recycling hadn’t gotten picked up.

“I mean, of course you could make changes. But the system in Chicago has run so long that aldermen are responsible for everything,” Moreno said. “I don’t think Chicagoans would like that.”

Claudia Morell reports on City Hall for WBEZ. Follow her on Twitter @claudiamorell.

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Data Explained

1. How we calculated ranking: An alderman’s rate is based off of the total number of meetings the alderman attended divided by the total number of meetings the alderman should have attended, based on committee assignments.


2. Incomplete budget data: By deadline, the Council’s Budget Committee provided only 19 of the 78 meetings it held between June 2015 through December 2018. The Budget Committee “hand-searched through dozens of boxes looking for the attendance sheets,” Amber Ritter, an attorney for the city, wrote in an email. “They are stored with other records from each meeting, etc., as opposed to being stored in one place.” Austin, the committee chair, told The Daily Line she “can’t believe” the records are missing, and is “checking in on that.”


3. We only count meetings were attendance records have been provided: In addition to the missing Budget data, not all offsite meetings have attendance records. Those meetings are excluded from the analysis.


4. Committee version lists: Committee assignments are set on the first full City Council meeting of the term, which is usually held at the end of May. Over the course of our analysis, membership lists were amended two additional times. To address the changes, there are three membership lists: (1) the original assignments, (2) committee reshuffle when Sophia King replaced Will Burns in the 4th Ward in 2016, (3) committee reshuffle when Silvana Tabares replaced Mike Zalewski in the 23rd Ward in 2018.


5. Joint meetings: Joint committees are when two or more committees meet together as a single body. Sometimes, aldermen are members of both committees. In those cases, an alderman’s attendance is only counted once.


6. Attendance could include/exclude drop-ins: Sometimes, aldermen leave a meeting shortly after they’re marked present on attendance sheets. Sometimes, aldermen show up late and are not marked present on attendance sheets. The documents only reflect attendance at the time it was taken.

The $6 billion Lincoln Yards development is set to advance Tuesday with the endorsement of the Community Development Commission — despite continued calls for delays from opponents.

With precisely one week until Election Day, mayoral candidates Bill Daley and Gery Chico are out with new ads they hope will close the deal with voters — many of whom are still undecided, according to recent polls — and are being inundated with campaign mail.

Cook County commissioners will receive a pension update from the new executive director of the county and Forest Preserve employee funds.

Voters concerned about racial inequity in Chicago picked education as their top area of concern, according to a survey of more than 2,000 Chicagoans conducted by a coalition of groups.

With less than two weeks until Election Day, mayoral candidate Toni Preckwinkle unveiled her closing argument with a new television spot. Cook County Republican Party Chairman Sean Morrison tossed his support behind mayoral candidate Willie Wilson, while 1st Ward aldermanic challenger Daniel La Spata lost another endorsement because of a photo from his bachelor party that City Council Black Caucus Chairman Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6) said was “racist.”

Sarah-Ji Rhee, a local photographer, says that Ald. Joe Moore used her photo without permission. [Facebook/ Sarah Ji Rhee]

A local photographer and a Los Angeles-based photojournalist are accusing Ald. Joe Moore (49th) of using their photos on campaign mailers without permission — but Moore’s campaign contends they did nothing wrong.

On Friday, photographer Sarah-Ji Rhee accused Moore and his campaign of stealing her photo for a campaign mailer in a Rogers Park Facebook group. She called it the most “egregious violation of professional courtesy” she’s experienced as a photographer.

Ameya Pawar, who notched the endorsements of both the Tribune and Sun Times in the race for treasurer, took a page from U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wednesday, while U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin endorsed 41st Ward challenger Tim Heneghan.

When long time 23rd Ward Ald. Mike Zalewski announced in April that he planned to retire before his term was up — giving Mayor Rahm Emanuel a chance to appoint his replacement, and giving him or her a leg up in the race for a full term — Paulino Villarreal did not even apply.

Even though his 2015 bid for alderman was cut short by heart problems, Paulino Villarreal told The Daily Line he was certain the selection process was “rigged” for then state Rep. Silvana Tabares, an ally of House Speaker Michael Madigan.

“It is a farce,” Villarreal said in May. “The deal has been cut.”

Villarreal was prescient — one of four people to apply, Tabares got the nod from Emanuel and was confirmed by the City Council unanimously.

Tabares is now running for a full term representing the Southwest Side ward that includes Midway Airport — and will go head to head against Villarreal after three other candidates were knocked from the ballot after their nominating petitions were challenged.

A licensed private investigator, Villarreal faces tough odds — he’s never had more than $1,000 on hand, compared to Tabares, who has close to $500,000 in her campaign’s bank account, according to the Illinois Sunshine database.

Tabares, who was born in Little Village raised by her mother in Brighton Park, has the backing of several large labor organizations, including the Chicago Teachers Union.

Villarreal, who grew up in Pilsen, moved to Bridgeport and ended up in Garfield Ridge, said he is running because of the “limited, limited, limited activities” for children outside of baseball in the spring and summer, a lack of small business development in the ward as well as crime.

But Villarreal said his main motivation in challenging Tabares’ bid for a full term is her close ties to Madigan — which he said is bad for the community.

“The ward is suffering,” Villarreal told The Daily Line from a donated ward office a few blocks from Tabares’. He played Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra on the TV while his wife, Olimpia, sat a desk away. “People are afraid to vote against Madigan. This whole ward is basically city workers, state workers, county workers. And they have told me, they say. ‘Paul, we’re going to vote for you but we can’t put your yard sign up… because we know we’ll get repercussions at work for supporting you.’”

Tabares said she was proud of her connections to other elected officials.

“I want to be able to have a good working relationship with everybody in the ward, whether it’s our congressmen, our Cook County commissioners, our state legislators, I want to be able to work for them to make sure that the community benefits from that, because that’s how you get things accomplished and for your ward,” Tabares said.

While Villarreal’s campaign may not be flush with cash, Tabares is taking his challenge seriously.

Her campaign has flooded residents at least half a dozen mailers, including one slamming Villarreal for being in debt to the state of Illinois.

Villarreal said he is making payments and has a remaining debt of less than $30,000, which he said was incurred when his firm’s former accountant did not pay his company’s state taxes.

Tabares’ husband, Sean Murray, worked on her first campaign and was also been on the payroll of the Friends of Michael J Madigan and Democratic Majority committees during election years. Madigan is paying for Murray to work on Tabares’ campaign as well, according to records filed with the state board of elections.

“Has he donated? Yes, he’s donated. I’m one of the Democrats in Illinois House, he’s not only donated to my campaign but many others in the Democrats. I mean, we are Democrats, we both, as Democratic Party of Illinois, we both served,” Tabares said, explaining she and Madigan has both run for Democratic state central committeeman as well.

Tabares is named as a defendant in the "sham candidate" lawsuit brought by Jason Gonzales after the 2016 primary he ran against Madigan. Gonzales alleged Tabares told early voters at a polling place that Gonzales was a convicted felon.

Tabares said she could remain independent of Madigan while serving on City Council.

“Oh yeah, I vote — when I was a state Rep., I always voted my district,” Tabares said, laughing. “I always appreciated the feedback I got from residents, the calls, the emails, the walk-ins… that’s what I’m going to continue to do in City Council.”

Tabares served as the state representative for the 21st District in the Illinois for five and a half years.

She said fighting for more money for Chicago Public School funding and carrying a bill to “restore collective bargaining rights for teachers that were stripped away back in 1995” as her major accomplishments. That bill, HB1253, died at the end of the last session.

Tabares said she supports an elected school board.

Since taking office as alderman — replacing one of the last Polish aldermen to represent a ward with a growing Latino population — Tabares said she worked with neighboring Ald. Ed Burke (14) and Ald. Marty Quinn (13) to press the Chicago Department of Aviation to replace window insulation installed by the city to reduce jet noise that emit a foul odor.

Tabares says she backs a ban on outside employment for aldermen — one of many proposals to clean up City Hall in the wake of an ethics scandal that erupted after Burke was charged with attempted extortion. Burke has said he is innocent.

However, Villarreal said Tabares’ mailers suggest she owes her allegiance to the 13th Ward.

In mailers, Tabares is pictured outside three locations not in the 23rd Ward — Pticek & Son Bakery, which is just on the other side of the ward border at 55th Street; Hale Elementary and Kennedy High School, both less than two blocks outside of the 23rd Ward.

Another mailer from neighboring Ald. Marty Quinn (13), another Madigan ally, features a similar image as a Tabares mailer — a police officer walking a girl to school.

Tabares said she and Quinn are working with the city to crack down on the Rainbow Motel — known for selling hourly rates, “naps,” and its fantasy suites. Tabares said it attracts crime to the area.

Both Villarreal and Tabares agree the area needs more resources for officers.

“The 23rd Ward is home to a lot of police officers and teachers and city workers,” Tabares said. “And one of my biggest priorities is making sure that police have the resources they need to keep our neighborhoods safe.”

The alderman touted her efforts to install a security camera at a major intersection on Archer and support for more counseling and training for officers. She said she wants to assure residents she will protect them from shouldering a heavier property tax burden and wanted to help small businesses navigate City Hall.

Villarreal said he wants to attract a new hospital near the former site of Leclaire Courts, a new firehouse at the corner of Archer and Narragansett, add a community parking lot for those shopping on Archer Avenue, as well as providing flood relief and small businesses improvement funds to mom and pop shops between Cicero to Harlem.

“I want to turn this strip into the next downtown LaGrange area where it’s loaded with nothing but small mom and pop boutiques… I’m tired of them selling out to all these big businesses in our neighborhood,” he said.  

Between March 2013 and June 2014, Alaina Hampton worked in Tabares’ office as part of her duties for for the Office of the Speaker.

Hampton filed a federal discrimination lawsuit in the spring of 2018 against Madigan and his political organizations, alleging she was prevented from moving up in the organization because she reported being sexually harassed by Kevin Quinn, the alderman’s brother. Kevin Quinn was fired. Madigan has denied retaliating against Hampton.

Tabares responded to a question about the alleged harassment of Hampton by talking about her efforts to “stand up” to former Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, but declined to comment on how Quinn handled the situation.

“I think as a woman, in politics, whether you’re running for office or you’re in office, you have to be tough,” Tabares said. “And you have to stand up for yourself and for your ward, and that’s what I’m doing. That’s what I did down in Springfield, stood up to Bruce Rauner when he wanted to cut funding, and that’s what I’m going to continue to do for my ward, is stand up. Stand up for the ward and what’s important to them.”

Tabares said she would focus on the issues important to 23rd Ward voters rather than concerns about workplace sexual harassment in Illinois politics.

“The No. 1 issue I hear going door to door is public safety and education, and that’s what I’m going to fight for in the City Council is the needs for the residents, because that’s what I’m hearing at the door,” Tabares said.

Hampton said it was disappointing that Tabares did not stand with her when she reported the harassment.

“It's so important that women in politics stand up for one another, now more than ever,” Hampton said in a statement. “Ald. Tabares has had plenty of opportunities, including in this interview, to speak up and support me and other women who have been victims of sexual harassment in the organization we both came up in politics through. Instead, she has opted to stay silent. It's disappointing. We'll never see meaningful change in our Democratic Party institutions as long as women in leadership are tacitly or explicitly enabling sexual harassment in this way."

Both Villarreal and Tabares said they have reservations about the consent decree now in place over the operations of the Chicago Police Department to ensure officers no longer violate the civil rights of Chicagoans.

“Any changes that we make in the police department I strongly believe that we need to have the police officers at the table to make those changes, so that’s my stance on the consent decree,” Tabares said. “Because police officers put their lives on the line every day, and we need to make sure that they come home safe to their families.”

Villarreal said the consent decree inappropriately limits police powers.


“Unfortunately we have groups out there that are stating, well you know, all police are bad or hate the police or blue lives matter or black lives matter,” Villarreal said. “You know, no, let’s find the common ground in the middle where it’s all lives matter, everybody’s lives matter, let’s all work together… let’s get a big table and at that table let’s have everybody we can have there and sit down and everybody talk and work out their problems. It’s that simple.”

In a 2014 video from Villarreal’s campaign announcement, he said public safety would be his top priority as alderman. He told reporters he planned to suit up and patrol the streets himself with a gun and his aldermanic badge.

“The alderman is a peace officer when he’s sworn in,” Villarreal said in the video. “He has the right to detain someone. He has the right to arrest someone. He has a city radio in his vehicle. He carries a badge. He can carry a weapon. This alderman doesn’t do that. No alderman has done that. I plan on doing that. I plan on doing it five nights a week,” he said. “I’m going to go out and buy a bulletproof vest. I’m talking about, I’m going to be out there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. There’s guns on the street and we’re going to get them.”  



In mailers, Tabares’ camp photoshopped Villarreal’s face onto imagery from the movie “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”

“The last thing we need is a guy running around with a gun and trying to make arrests while he’s living out his fantasy of being a cop. It’s dangerous and reckless,” the piece reads.

Villarreal said the ad’s imagery was an attempt to bully him for using a mobility scooter — walking is painful for him because of Osteoarthritis, he said.

Mayoral candidate Paul Vallas became the latest contender to hit the airwaves, where he will be joined by some of the best-funded aldermanic candidates.

The closure of northbound Lake Shore Drive for nearly 24 hours after the discovery of cracked steel support beams on Monday should be a “wake up call” for everyone that Illinois — and Chicago — can no longer paper over its crumbling infrastructure, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday.

Illinois lawmakers looking for ways to plug the state’s massive budget deficit should follow Chicago’s lead and hike taxes on e-cigarettes and liquid nicotine, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday.

Daniel La Spata, who is running to unseat 1st Ward Ald. Proco Joe Moreno, apologized Tuesday for taking a photo wearing a banana costume while surrounded by smiling African American children and people wearing monkey masks in Millennium Park.

“I apologize unequivocally for the photo," La Spata said in a statement. "The photograph and the costumes were not racially motivated, but I understand how it could be perceived."

The 2013 photo, which La Spata removed Tuesday from his Facebook page, was taken during his bachelor party, when his friends surprised him with a banana costume and chased him in Millennium Park while wearing monkey masks. Kids in the park asked to take a picture with the group, according to a statement from the campaign.

"This type of insensitivity and bigotry has no place anywhere," Moreno said in a tweet.

In a text message to The Daily Line, Moreno said had nothing to add to his tweet.

Black Caucus Chairman Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6) criticized the photo in a statement, as did Latino Caucus Chairman Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36).

“Whether it’s Ralph Northam in Virginia, or an aldermanic candidate here in Chicago, there should be no place in our politics for this kind of blatant racist imagery," Sawyer said. "I have no interest in having a colleague in the City Council who would participate in this sort of bigotry.”

Villegas said he had concerns about La Spata's behavior.

"Whether it’s elected officials from Virginia or the White House, hate has no home here and definitely not on the City Council," Villegas said in a tweet.

Sawyer is running for re-election, while Villegas is unopposed.

"As alderman, I will use my office to break down racial inequities in our ward and city, as I’ve done personally and professionally for the last 13 years,” La Spata said.

New television advertisements in the races for mayor and treasurer are set to hit the airwaves, while an aldermanic challenger notched a high-profile endorsement.

Chicago is once again the most corrupt city in the country, according to a new report by University of Illinois at Chicago professor and former Ald. Dick Simpson (44.)