Another alderman announces his departure from City Council — the second this week
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Ald. Howard Brookins Jr. has joined the growing list of Chicago City Council members who won’t seek another term in office.
Brookins, who has represented the 21st Ward since 2003, said in a release he “took pride in modeling servant leadership for our beautiful communities” and that he was “thankful for having the trust of my community as we worked together to provide greater economic opportunity and prosperity for our people.”
Brookins, who is currently chair of the Committee on Transportation and Public Way, will serve out the rest of his term, which ends in May, and pledged to remain active in politics.
Brookins said in the Wednesday release he “wants to hand the baton over to a new generation of leaders who can make sure the movement for racial justice and economic equity is sustained into the new political era.” He noted he had worked “with young leaders like Ronnie Mosley to charter the new 21st Ward Young Democrats organization.”
On Thursday, Brookins endorsed Mosley, a policy advocate who has worked in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration and the Obama Foundation, to take his place. The Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Catholic Church, 8th Ward Ald. Michelle Harris, Cook County Commissioner Stanley Moore, State Sen. Jacqueline Collins, State Rep. Justin Slaughter and MWRD Commissioner Chakena Perry were also on hand for the endorsement.
Ayana Clark, a staffer to U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush has already declared her intent to run for the seat. Four others — retired firefighter Cornell Dantzler, police officers Daliah Goree and Bernard “BK” Kelly and attorney Larry Lloyd — have taken initial steps toward a run for the 21st Ward seat, either creating fundraising committees or filing paperwork with the city’s Board of Ethics to indicate their interest in a run.
In an interview with the Tribune on Wednesday, Brookins said he was “free at last” and that it was time for a self-imposed term limit after nearly 20 years.
“This job has been not as enjoyable these past three years in part because the pandemic took away the most important parts of the job I love,” he said of being face to face with constituents. The pandemic stuck him with “long boring meetings with people inventing things to say just to seem relevant. The meetings were longer, everybody wanted to talk, and those are the parts of the job that I don’t particularly enjoy.”
Brookins, the son of former state Sen. Howard Brookins Sr., who founded the family-run Brookins Funeral Home in Auburn Gresham, is also an attorney. After a losing bid for a judicial seat on the Cook County Circuit Court earlier this year, Brookins hinted he might step away from the council to continue his law practice.
He was fighting a city board finding that his defense of clients in criminal cases involving the Chicago Police Department violated the city’s ethics ordinance and said, “If I don’t win, I’m pretty sure that I stay until May when the term is over,” he had told the Tribune, “but I don’t know.”
Among his clients: former Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno, who was fighting felony charges of obstruction of justice and insurance fraud.
Before Brookins’ time as alderman, he was an assistant public defender, and assistant state’s attorney. He mounted a run for Cook County state’s attorney in 2007, but lost in the Democratic primary to Anita Alvarez. Brookins later sought unsuccessfully to unseat Rush.
Among the accomplishments Brookins touted during his 19 years in office including new retail in the ward and expanded affordable housing. He also helped usher in the renaming of Lake Shore Drive after Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, reparations for victims of disgraced former police Cmdr. Jon Burge and the establishment of the city’s electric scooter program.
Brookins was the head of City Council’s Black Caucus during the heated 2011 remap battle.
He’s had his share of controversy: Brookins made an early name for himself by pushing for the city’s first Walmart to set up shop in his ward on the site of a shuttered steel plant. He was initially unsuccessful and earned the ire of labor unions for voting against an ordinance mandating big-box stores pay higher wages to employees. A Walmart did eventually open in Chatham in 2011.
His former longtime aide, Curtis Thompson Jr., also pleaded guilty to taking a $7,500 bribe to fix a liquor license.
Brookins joins a growing exodus of council members who are retiring or, in the case of several colleagues, declining to run again for their ward seats and instead are challenging Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s bid for a second term. Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza, 10th, announced just Sunday her decision to step down.
Brookins and Garza join five others who are stepping down at the end of this term: Wrigleyville Ald. Tom Tunney, 44th, Uptown Ald. James Cappleman, 46th, Andersonville Ald. Harry Osterman, 48th, South Shore and Hyde Park Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th, and West Pullman Ald. Carrie Austin, 34th.
Lincoln Park Ald. Michele Smith, 43rd, has already stepped down following her recent announcement.
Three other members of the council — Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, Sophia King, 4th, and Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th — are running for mayor next year against Lightfoot, so they are unable to seek reelection as City Council members. Ald. George Cardenas, 12th, will exit the council before the end of his term should he be elected in November to serve on the Cook County’s Board of Review.
Others, such as Ald. Michael Scott, 24th, who left the council for a job in the private sector, and Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson, convicted of tax evasion and lying to banking regulators, have stepped down and had their positions filled by mayoral appointment. Lightfoot replaced Daley Thompson with United Airlines director Nicole Lee, and she replaced Scott with his sister, Monique Scott, a Chicago Park District supervisor.
Brookins declined to say whom he would endorse in next year’s mayoral race, noting he hadn’t been asked “and I don’t know the answer. I intend on being active in politics, and right now I’d have to say Mayor Lightfoot is the favorite, but there’s still a lot of race left to go.”
He also said that serving on the council “in the midst of a new (mayoral) administration, with them getting their sea legs, someone who has not been in elected office before, you didn’t necessarily have a relationship with the mayor or understand what her leadership style was, has been tough for people also,” Brookins said.
He also said he is still recovering from injuries he suffered in a 2016 freak bike accident involving a squirrel lodging itself in his bike spokes during a ride along the Cal-Sag trail.
“The squirrel still wasn’t done with me, so I’ve had a series of surgeries to repair damage that was done five, six years ago when I had the accident,” he said, adding he looked “a little bit like Frankenstein’s monster” at the time.
