Bemoaning how the job of a City Council member has changed, Ald. Matt O’Shea, who helped to lead the budget rebellion against Mayor Brandon Johnson, is calling it quits after four terms.
After 16 years as alderperson and 30 as a community leader in the Far Southwest Side neighborhoods of Beverly and Morgan Park, O’Shea (19th) said it’s time for him to “step back and do something else.”
“To do this job right, it’s more than a full-time job. You don’t have days off. You can’t go to the grocery store. If there’s a crime pattern or something happening in the neighborhood, it’s very stressful. You have to be out front,” said O’Shea, who is endorsing his chief of staff Erin Ross as his replacement.
“This job takes a lot out of you and it’s only fair to your community to give it everything you have. You start to think, `I don’t know if I can continue giving at that level.’ So it’s time to step out.”
O’Shea, 57, is the third Council member to choose political retirement over a reelection bid. Ald. Marty Quinn (13th), another outspoken mayoral critic, and Workforce Development Committee Chair Mike Rodriguez (22nd), a Johnson ally, are also leaving the City Council.
A former social worker-turned aldermanic aide, O’Shea was one of 13 new members sworn into office along with then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011.
Since then, the City Council has taken a sharp left turn with seven Democratic Socialists serving alongside Johnson, the most liberal mayor in Chicago history.
That philosophical change has dramatically altered the role of a Chicago alderperson from what O’Shea believes it should be.
“We spend a lot more time now down at City Hall and you can start to lose touch… You need to be in the neighborhood. You need to have eyes on things. You need to be visiting your schools and parks, driving your commercial strips, communicating with your business community — and you’re not able to do as much of that,” O’Shea told the Sun-Times.
“You’re finding information out second-hand. Instead of today, you get a call tomorrow and you’re like, ‘Damn it. I should have been there.’“
O’Shea blamed the social isolation brought on by the pandemic and the civil unrest triggered by the murder of George Floyd for changing the role of a City Council member for the worse.
“More time needs to be spent advocating for the people you were elected to represent, and less on resolutions speaking out on things that happened half-way around the world,” O’Shea said.
“The majority of our children in public schools are reading below proficiency levels and their math scores are significantly below where they should be. We need to spend more time focusing on that and less on, `What’s the title we’re gonna give to the school. We’re gonna change the title.’ We’re gonna change the name on the bathroom door. But our children aren’t prepared to go out in the real world.”
O’Shea has been an outspoken advocate for the police officers and firefighters who live in his ward. He accused Johnson of using his first three budgets to shrink the Chicago Police Department by attrition.
“The police academy is empty right now. We’re gonna continue to see police districts across the city shrink in numbers,” he said. “When something happens in a neighborhood, you want to get more officers deployed to combat a crime pattern. That’s becoming less and less of an option.”
O’Shea was a leader of the renegade majority that rejected the mayor’s corporate head tax and muscled through an alternative city budget with major elements Johnson has either been unable to, or refused to, implement.
The mayor plans to renew his “tax the rich” mantra to help erase an $882.4 million shortfall in what could be his final budget.
But O’Shea said, “Before we start talking about revenue, taxes, property taxes, etc., we need to look within our government where can we make cuts. We need to put everything on the table. We have bloat in places. What departments can we make cuts at that don’t jeopardize public safety?”
Johnson has struggled to pass his last two budgets. He’s issued three vetoes and been forced to accept a Zoning Committee chair he did not choose. His contentious relationship with the City Council continues to worsen.
O’Shea blamed an “unwillingness to come to the table to find compromise” and said “important people around” Johnson are “in over their heads.”
“Mayor of this city at this time would be difficult for anybody. But you can’t succeed at it if you surround [yourself] with people who aren’t going to give you good counsel,” O’Shea said.