Excerpts from the ChicagoSunTimes.com:
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was accused Thursday of scrapping a Chicago Fire Department promotion list — and saddling taxpayers with excessive overtime costs — to get even with a controversial city council member who was second in line to be promoted.
Last year, Lightfoot lashed out at Ald. Jim Gardiner over profane, threatening, and misogynistic text messages he sent to people, including Lightfoot’s political consultant and chief of staff to Finance Chairman Scott Waguespack . Lightfoot also asked then-Inspector General Joe Ferguson to investigate.
One week later, Gardiner rose on the council floor to issue a rare public apology for the embarrassment his messages caused. He received a rare rebuke from the Cook County Democratic Party and remains under federal investigation for allegedly retaliating against some Northwest Side constituents for political purposes.
Now, Gardiner is turning the tables on Lightfoot — with a recent lawsuit to back up his claim. He is a Chicago firefighter on a leave of absence from the department. He said the mayor, with whom he has clashed repeatedly, tossed CFD’s 2009 promotion list simply because he was second in line to move up to the rank of lieutenant. The list has been up since 2013. CFD policy is to exhaust the list before putting up a new one.
David Barron and Michael Lynch, two white firefighters awaiting promotion to lieutenant filed a lawsuit Aug. 30 in Cook County Circuit Court accusing the city of violating their rights by scrapping the list and suspending promotions, even though there were 40 vacancies as of April — and even more now. That has forced firefighters to work excessive amounts of overtime while the city races to finalize a new list from a lieutenants’ exam administered by the city in 2019, the firefighters’ attorney said.
The hiring plan requires the city to document the reason for retiring the promotion list. But, in response to a Freedom of Information Request filed by one of the aggrieved firefighters, the city responded that no such document existed.
The lawsuit, which an attorney hopes to turn into a class action, seeks promotions, back pay, and lost seniority for the roughly 60 firefighters whose names appear on the now-scrapped list.
Gardiner himself faces two federal lawsuits. One accuses him of harassing, intimidating and falsely arresting a constituent who picked up a cellphone Gardiner’s ward superintendent left at a convenience store. The other accuses him of violating the First Amendment rights of 45th Ward residents by deleting their criticisms of him from his official Facebook page. The city has refused to represent Gardiner in either suit.
Though one of his obscene text messages suggested otherwise, Gardiner has maintained he has “never withheld, nor have I ever instructed or condoned my staff to withhold city services from any resident.”
It’s not the first time Gardiner and Lightfoot have clashed. Shortly after taking office, Gardiner accused the mayor of rewarding his vanquished predecessor John Arena with a $129,996-a-year job in the Department of Planning and Development.
A few months later, Arena resigned from that post after Gardiner accused him of using his job as city planner to continue fighting the man who beat him.
thanks Dennis
