Chicago Park District appoints Rosa Escareno interim superintendent in the wake of Michael Kelly’s resignation

The Chicago Park District appointed Rosa Escareno, a recently retired commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protections, to be its interim superintendent Wednesday.

Escareno’s appointment came after former Superintendent Michael Kelly resigned Saturday, shortly after Mayor Lori Lightfoot called for his removal. Kelly held the top job at the Park District during the lifeguard sexual abuse scandal first reported by WBEZ in April. His resignation came more than a year after he first learned of allegations of sexual abuse and harassment by Chicago lifeguards. According to WBEZ, Kelly knew about the first allegation by a lifeguard in February 2020 but waited until mid-March to forward the complaint on to the agency’s inspector general.

“I am extremely honored and grateful to be given the opportunity to work with all of you, as well as with the residents of the city of Chicago, to step in at a moment of transition, and to be as helpful as I can to support the ongoing progress and improvement of what needs to be done at the parks right now,” Escareno said at Wednesday’s meeting.

Escareno said there needs to be “serious conversations, and serious review of existing processes to ensure that we continue to regain the trust of the people of Chicago.”

In a Wednesday statement, Lightfoot said she had recommended Escareno to the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners. Before joining the business affairs department, Escareno served as deputy chief operating officer under Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration.

“Having served three mayors and with more than three decades of public service experience, Rosa has proven leadership skills and a breadth of experience that will inform her efforts to lead our Park District and maintain our beautiful public spaces and facilities during this interim period,” Lightfoot said.

Kelly’s resignation came directly in the wake of the suspension and subsequent resignation of a Park District supervisor accused of having an “inappropriate relationship” with an underage former seasonal employee.

An investigation into that employee found screenshots of texts describing “inappropriate communications” and “choking done in a sexual manner” between himself and the minor.

On Wednesday, board President Avis LaVelle said that at a closed emergency Board of Commissioners meeting held Friday, the board gave Kelly two options: Resign immediately or be fired for cause. She said the board gave Kelly the option to resign so as to avoid the prospect of “protracted litigation.”

Kelly was suspended Friday night, LaVelle said, before he resigned Saturday.

At Wednesday’s Board of Commissioners meeting, Juanita Irizarry, the executive director of Friends of the Parks, said the group applauded Lightfoot’s call that led to Kelly’s resignation but added that the agency’s Board of Commissioners had also not responded to the abuse scandal, among other issues, “with adequate urgency or sense that you are accountable to all Chicagoans for these things.”

“So now is the time for you to step up and change your ways or also face the call from the public for significant change in the composition and construct of the board,” Irizarry said.

LaVelle said the board and the Park District are taking every allegation seriously. “Finding the facts and acting on them and holding accountable those who failed to do what they should do and what is right is a high priority,” she said.

“I know many people have been inpatient with us, wanting changes to happen more quickly, wondering what we knew and why we didn’t know something or why we didn’t seem to act on what we knew,” LaVelle said. “I’ve had some of those same questions myself, and we share your anger, but we are committed to act on the facts as they unfold.”

Asked about LaVelle’s future as board president at an unrelated news conference Wednesday, Lightfoot said: “I think that we have to take one thing at a time. It’s important for us to stand up new leadership. I made a specific recommendation to the board about that, and I believe that they’re acting on as we speak.”

Board of Commissioners chief of staff Bryce Yancy said LaVelle did not have a comment on Lightfoot’s statement at this time.

Chicago Tribune’s Tatyana Turner and Gregory Pratt contributed.