Chicagoans want better access to city council

Dec. 26, 2008

Story by Elisa Tavares Bell

Chicagoan Bruce Jordan took a day off from work to attend a Chicago City Council Committee meeting last summer, but he sat waiting for almost two hours before learning his alderman would not be there.

Jordan, president of Concerned Citizens of Auburn-Gresham, said Ald. Howard Brookins Jr. (21st) did not attend the August zoning meeting at which Jordan and other community residents wanted to voice their safety concerns about a commercial district the alderman wants to develop in their southwest side neighborhood.

“I’ll take off work for important issues,” said Jordan, an 11-year Chicago resident. “But when we go for nothing, it’s inconvenient and disappointing.”

Legislative watchdog groups and former aldermen say Jordan’s experience shows the council doesn’t do enough to enable and encourage public participation in government. They say elected officials don’t assure taxpayers the transparency they deserve in a democracy and should look to other city governments like Los Angeles and suburban Elgin as models for how to do the public’s business.

“I feel cheated that we still don’t have open communication with our alderman, when other cities do,” said Jordan who later met with Brookins after requesting a meeting.

Unlike Chicago, Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city, offers the public Internet access to recorded city council meetings so anyone can watch meetings after the fact, said Greg Allison, director of systems at the Los Angeles City Clerk’s Office. He said the website also offers its 3.8 million residents live and on-demand archives of most committee and all full council meetings. It also offers access to passed ordinances dating back to 1979 and voting records for all elected officials, Allison said.

That’s not what Chicago residents get.

Although Chicagoans can view full city council meetings live on the web or on the local cable Chicago Access Network Television channel (CAN-TV), they cannot access past full council or committee meetings, said Jay Rowell, deputy director at the Chicago City Clerk’s Office. Approved ordinances dating back to 1981 are accessible online, but voting records are not, he said.

Allison said Los Angeles originally televised council meetings on a local cable channel, but in 2006, city officials approved a $300,000 web upgrade to enhance government transparency. It saves on administrative costs since it reduces demand for travel to City Hall for documents or council meetings, Allison said.

Rowell said Chicago city cannot afford a video archive of recorded council meetings because of Chicago’s $469 million budget deficit. He estimates such a system could cost millions.

“With lay-offs, there are only so many hours in the day and there is only so much they [city officials] can do,” said Rowell.

But Allison said Internet technology can be cost-effective. Since Los Angeles approved the web upgrade, it has paid a one-time implementation cost of $150,000, a one-time equipment cost of $90,000 and an estimated $800 monthly maintenance fee, he said.

Rowell said City Clerk Miguel Del Valle in his second year in office created the online archive of all city ordinances. Del Valle wants to create an archive of all council and committee meetings, but that would require the support of the majority of the 50-member council, Rowell said.

Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association, said if the city is already recording city council meetings, it should also preserve them in video archives.

“Even if people have web access, it’s difficult to sit in front of the computer screen during working hours,” said Stewart.

Sue Olafson, public information officer for the Elgin City Council, agrees. That’s why Elgin, with a population of 95,000, gives the public access to council meetings online, she said.

Olafson said before, residents could only view meetings on its local cable channel, but now they can access a live web cast of committee and full council meetings and an archive of recorded meetings since 2007.

“If you have the capability, you should keep the public connected,” said Olafson.

The Elgin council’s web upgrade plan didn’t cost much, Olafson said, noting the one-time cost of $25,000 and an annual fee of about $12,000. She said Elgin also aims to launch a “webinar” feature by spring 2009 through which residents could ask city officials questions via the web.

Former Chicago Ald. Dick Simpson says the windy city’s minimal use of Internet technology has more to do with politics and less to do with money. He said Chicago can afford an enhanced council website but since a higher use of Internet technology could place more attention on controversial council actions, most council members oppose it.

“By denying the public access to local government, it [city council] also resists public accountability,” said Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

He said the resistance to transparency continues from his time as an alderman in the 1970s. Back then, he said, it was standard for aldermen to provide “just enough” information on proposed legislation to appear as though they were serving the public.

Simpson said the political trend in Chicago could change, though.

“If civic groups and community organizations demand information and press the city for it, they would get it,” he said. “If the public is presented what it’s being denied by city officials, it would not stay quiet. It would use the information to make changes.”