CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot said a lawsuit alleging she berated Chicago Park District lawyers in offensive terms is “wholly without merit” and said she has no animus toward Italian Americans.
“I am aware of the lawsuit that has been filed by a former Chicago Park District employee. While I will continue my practice of not commenting on the specific claims alleged in pending litigation, I feel compelled to state that the deeply offensive and ridiculous claims are wholly lacking in merit, and I welcome the opportunity to prove that fact in court,” Lightfoot said in a statement. “Furthermore, to be clear, I never have and never will harbor any animus toward Italians or Italian Americans.”
Lightfoot released the statement a day after the Tribune reported on a lawsuit brought by former Chicago Park District deputy general counsel George Smyrniotis against the city. Lightfoot did not hold any public media availabilities on Thursday and ignored questions about the lawsuit outside a downtown restaurant.
Smyrniotis’ lawsuit alleges Lightfoot blocked a deal the Chicago Park District made with an Italian American group that would allow a Christopher Columbus statue to be displayed in a parade and made obscene remarks to government lawyers during a contentious meeting.
According to the lawsuit, Lightfoot told the attorneys: “You make some kind of secret agreement with Italians. ... You are out there stroking your d---- over the Columbus statue, I am trying to keep Chicago police officers from being shot and you are trying to get them shot. My d--- is bigger than yours and the Italians, I have the biggest d--- in Chicago.”
Smyrniotis’ lawsuit against the city is closely related to another case brought by the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans against the Chicago Park District after Lightfoot removed Columbus statues from the city.
Smyrniotis claims in his suit that he was told by Timothy King, then the district’s top lawyer, and then-Superintendent Michael Kelly that they wanted the lawsuit over the statues settled “as soon as possible.”
According to Smyrniotis’ lawsuit, the Italian American group wanted to display the Columbus statue in its annual Columbus Day parade last fall, a request King approved because the Chicago Park District thought it would generate goodwill with the Italian Americans.
But when Lightfoot learned those negotiations also involved a proposal to remove the statue from Chicago permanently, Smyrniotis alleges in his lawsuit, she threatened to pull the parade permit and called the Zoom meeting with Chicago Park District officials.
There, Smyrniotis alleges, Lightfoot “proceeded to berate and defame” the lawyers and asked them, “Where did you go to law school? Did you even go to law school? Do you even have a law license?”
Lightfoot told them that they were “not to do a f------ thing with that statue without my approval.”
“Get that f------ statue back before noon tomorrow or I am going to have you fired,” Lightfoot said, according to the complaint.
Lightfoot also made obscene comments to Smyrniotis and King, according to the lawsuit, which alleges she called them “d----” and asked, “What the f--- were you thinking?”
Smyrniotis asserts the alleged comments defamed him by imputing that he lacked the ability to perform his job duties. He resigned from the Chicago Park District last month, according to the lawsuit. King has also since left the district.
Prior to the mayor’s Friday statement, a city spokesperson said the city would “have no further comment as the matter is now in litigation.”
The lawsuit by Smyrniotis is just the latest fallout over Lightfoot’s July 2020 decision to remove Columbus statues from Chicago’s public places.
The Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Park District last July asserting that the district violated a deal signed in 1973 to display the Columbus statue in Little Italy when it took down the statue in summer 2020.
Lightfoot has said she ordered the removal of Columbus statues in Grant Park, Little Italy and the South Chicago neighborhood after activists forcibly attempted to remove the Grant Park figure, leading to violent clashes between police and protesters.
Enrico Mirabelli, attorney for the Italian Americans, said he believes Smyrniotis’ allegations strengthen his case.
“Presuming the mayor has been accurately quoted, her comments give proof to the claim that she has wrongfully interfered with my client’s contract with the Chicago Park District in a degree that is unprecedented,” Mirabelli said.
Ron Onesti, president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, said he’s “literally outraged that someone in her position would ever use words like that to refer to any group of individuals.”
“When will it end with the disrespect?” Onesti asked, referring to the mayor’s alleged comments as “grotesque.”
Columbus has been condemned by activists around the country who point to the Italian explorer’s mistreatment of Indigenous people after he landed in the Americas in 1492.
Many Italian Americans prize the statues of the explorer as an expression of their mainstream American identity.
Lightfoot initially resisted calls to take down Columbus statues. Comparing the debate over Columbus statues to the same argument over monuments to Confederate Army figures being removed in other cities, Lightfoot said she favors acting “to not try to erase history, but to embrace it full-on.”
But she ordered the removals after the unrest at Grant Park.
That lawsuit claims that a Columbus statue committee paid the Chicago Park District more than $10,000 in 1973 “for the purpose of maintaining in perpetuity” the Columbus statue.
After Lightfoot removed the Columbus statues, she created a review process for controversial city monuments that she said would be part of “a racial healing and historical reckoning project.” But the city’s monuments commission has yet to issue its final report.
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