The on-again-off-again compromise to rename Chicago’s most iconic roadway Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive could be back on again.
Ald. David Moore (17th), the City Council’s champion for renaming Outer Lake Shore Drive in honor of DuSable, said the Black Heroes Matter Coalition is now offering to accept the hybrid name change, if they can be assured that it will be voted on at Friday’s rescheduled Council meeting and not sent back to committee.
That’s a promise Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s allies refused to make Tuesday, prompting the compromise to fall apart late that day.
“They’ll take that compromise as long as there is a vote Friday. Otherwise, they’re moving forward with the Jean Baptiste DuSable name” alone, Moore said.
Black Heroes Matter is scheduled to hold a news conference at 11 a.m. Thursday.
If they they’re willing to settle for the hybrid name change to honor DuSable — a Black man of Haitian descent who was Chicago’s first non-indigenous settler — then Moore said he is, too.
“I listen to the people. … I wouldn’t fight against it,” Moore said.
“You know what they say in a situation where you feel you don’t get what you want and other people feel like they don’t get what they want, that’s usually a win-win situation.”
Moore was asked whether he still believes he has the 26 votes needed to approve the name change for DuSable — without the name “Lake Shore Drive.”
“Honestly, I don’t know anymore. After yesterday, a lot of things got crazy. I just don’t know anymore,” Moore said.
“There were people just saying, ‘I don’t know.’ Nobody said, `No.’ Many said, `If you go with the hybrid, then I will do it. But, we’ll see about the other one. It’ll be an easier vote for me with my constituents.’ That’s what they were saying.”
Does that mean Moore believes he’s better off taking a bird in the hand, instead of taking his chances?
“Absolutely,” he said.
Ald. Michelle Harris (8th), the mayor’s City Council floor leader, agreed.
“If I was them, I would take the hybrid and work with the city to do all of other things,” Harris said, referring to Lightfoot’s $40 million plan to build and complete DuSable Park, rename the downtown Riverwalk in honor of DuSable and build statues, monuments and othe exhibits along the Riverwalk to educate Chicagoans and tourists about DuSable and his Native-American wife.
“That works for the entire city. Everybody in the City Council agrees with that. Everybody. So that [hybrid name change] will pass. The hybrid is a good compromise for everybody in the entire city.”
Ald. Sophia King (4th), Moore’s co-sponsor, could not be reached for comment.
Moore said a last-minute offer to rename Millennium Park for DuSable would not be part of the compromise.
“That was a unilateral thing by Brian Hopkins [and Brendan Reilly]. The administration never brought that to me and Alderman Hopkins never brought it to me,” Moore said.
Wednesday’s Council meeting dissolved into chaos — delaying a showdown on renaming Lake Shore Drive for DuSable — after a pair of aldermen used a parliamentary maneuver to temporarily delay Lightfoot’s appointment of Celia Meza as corporation counsel.
Aldermen Ray Lopez (15th) and Jeanette Taylor (20th) made the move to protest the Law Department’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by social worker Anjanette Young after Young’s attorney refused to accepted, what he viewed as a “low-ball” offer to settle the case for $1 million.
Young was forced to stand naked and humiliated while an all-male team of Chicago Police officers searched her home as she pleaded with them that they had the wrong address.
Wednesday’s move to temporarily scuttle the Meza appointment prompted Lightfoot to recess, leave the rostrum and get into a finger-pointing shouting match with Taylor as cameras rolled, stunning and disappointing even some of the mayor’s closest allies.
