On May 11, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that the city had expanded COVID-19 testing, opening six new test sites. The city had chosen sites “based on community testing needs.”
Moore is not alone in looking for answers. Other aldermen have been clamoring for more pandemic-response information from the administration since March—when, as I reported previously, Mayor Lightfoot fired off an emergency executive order that gave her administration sweeping budgetary and procurement powers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aldermen’s frustrations were evident at a council Budget Committee meeting three days before the EPO passed the full council. Of the committee’s 34 members, 33 were present, and nine more noncommittee aldermen took part. The committee met to consider only one agenda item: the mayor’s EPO. The discussion went on for almost four hours.
“I think [the expenditures] should be where they’re needed most: in the Black community,” 37th Ward alderman Emma Mitts told the Budget Committee.
Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez of the 25th Ward—who also voted no on the EPO—has had the opposite experience.
After the council raised “legitimate concerns,” the mayor apparently “arrived at the same conclusion,” Reilly said.
