With the Capitol buildings in Washington D.C. and Springfield closing to the public to avoid spreading the coronavirus, can Chicago’s City Hall be close behind? Should the nerve center of city government be shut down, at least temporarily?
A top mayoral ally thinks so.
Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10th), the mayor’s hand-picked chairman of the City Council’s Committee on Workforce Development, says it’s time to “be proactive about this.”
“We can’t stop it from coming. It’s already here. Now, what we have to do is worry about just slowing it down. We need to close City Hall for two weeks. Close our office. Maybe [leave] just a skeleton crew. Two people. Encourage people to make requests via the phone so we’re not transmitting,” Garza said.
A two-week shutdown would mean postponing Wednesday’s City Council meeting. Garza calls that the right thing to do, considering that scores of Chicagoans typically line up outside the City Council chambers for the right to speak during the public participation section before every meeting.
Council meetings often draw large protests and press conferences outside the chambers. Inside, there are dozens of seats in the gallery.
All of that runs contrary to advice from the Centers for Disease Control to “stay away from big crowds,” Garza said.
“We need to be proactive and put a stop to this. People are dying. … It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”
Lightfoot has already made the difficult decision to cancel Saturday’s downtown St. Patrick’s Day parade, Sunday’s South Side Irish parade and a smaller parade on the Northwest Side.
Asked whether the mayor is contemplating a City Hall shutdown, Garza said: “They’re talking about it every day, all day long.”
Health Committee Chairman George Cardenas (12th) acknowledged: “This could be not only serious, but very serious very soon.”
But Cardenas argued City Hall should be shut down only if somebody who works at or has visited the building recently tests positive for the coronavirus.
“We want to be cautious. We want to avoid large crowds, obviously. We asked all the seniors not to come down. But, to some extent, government has to run. Some of the things we’ve got to do have to get done. We’re not there yet to a complete shutdown,” Cardenas said.
“If there’s a case — anybody within City Hall and its perimeter — then we’ll have no choice. Then, we’ll take that action.”
Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd), Finance Committee chairman, said he’s “working through the options” to keep the Council functioning but while also keeping public crowds away from City Hall, at least temporarily.
“We can’t shut the whole thing down. We’re probably gonna have committee meetings like Finance. We’ll try to filter a lot of stuff through there so we can continue to make sure that we’re doing the fiscal transactions, legislative transactions to keep the city moving,” he said.
“We would try to push people to do public comment through like a live stream. We’re talking to the IT guys about that. My meetings might be longer where I would just read all the public comment. … We want to make sure it’s legal.”
