{"id":703077,"date":"2026-04-03T23:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/703077\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T23:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:44:14","slug":"top-johnson-aide-says-there-will-be-consequences-for-cha-power-struggle-over-new-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/703077\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Johnson aide says there will be ‘consequences’ for CHA power struggle over new CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

A top mayoral aide said Friday there will be \u201cconsequences\u201d for the Chicago Housing Authority\u2019s decision to hire a new CEO<\/a> whom Mayor Brandon Johnson has never met, after what the administration claims was a secret process that violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act.<\/p>\n

Mayor Brandon Johnson\u2019s chief of staff, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, refused to say what those consequences would be for a CHA board that bypassed Johnson\u2019s recommendation of former Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) in favor of Keith Pettigrew, who currently serves as executive director of the District of Columbia Housing Authority.<\/p>\n

But she hinted that Johnson was prepared to wage a legal battle with the CHA board that defied him and, as she put it, \u201cknowingly\u201d violated its \u201coath to uphold the law of the land locally, state as well as federal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this board operated in a way that violated one of the key pieces of any public body \u2014 and that is the Open Meetings Act to ensure the transparency of all the steps that these officials are required to take when you are fiduciary of public resources \u2014 then there will be some consequences around that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say what they are, but I can tell you that we don\u2019t have these laws just to say them. They actually do have teeth and they do have expectations. \u2026 There will be some activity in the coming weeks that you will see and we\u2019ll have to see how this plays out. The mayor stands firm [in his belief that] the process did not follow what is statutorily required and [CHA Board Chair Matthew Brewer] is going to have to answer to that as the chair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pacione-Zayas compared what she called the CHA\u2019s secret process to the transparent process at Chicago Public Schools that culminated in the partially elected, partially appointed school board\u2019s decision to give Interim CEO Macquline King the permanent job with a three-year contract at a starting salary of $380,000. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was posted well in advance that a contract would be executed with a named candidate for a special meeting. These are pretty basic guidelines and standards,\u201d Pacione-Zayas said.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Johnson took his power struggle for control over the CHA to a new level.<\/p>\n

The mayor acted to remove <\/a> Brewer as board chair and interim operating chairman in apparent retaliation for Brewer\u2019s role in engineering Pettigrew\u2019s appointment. <\/p>\n

The CHA board\u2019s 7-2 vote was a political defeat for Johnson, who favored Burnett and has spent months seeking the federal waivers needed to resolve Burnett\u2019s apparent conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

Brewer argues that Johnson\u2019s issues with the CHA board\u2019s vote have \u201cnothing to do with violating the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to do with the mayor not getting the person he wanted as CEO,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Brewer said he is \u201cvery confident\u201d that the CHA board he chairs \u201ccomplied with all applicable laws,\u201d including the Open Meetings Act that allows personnel matters to be listed as such and debated behind closed doors. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am a lawyer who hates lawsuits. So I\u2019m never going to say, \u2018Bring it on.\u2019 I\u2019m not picking a fight. I\u2019m not inviting a fight. But if we have to fight, we will fight,\u201d Brewer said.<\/p>\n

The embattled CHA chair maintained that the mayor\u2019s office interviewed Pettigrew about a year ago. It was only then at the end of a search process that dragged on for more than a year that Johnson, as Brewer put it, said, \u201c\u2018I want my guy to come in\u2019 and disregarded this entire process.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s ironic that they\u2019re saying that I violated process and I made some unilateral decision,\u201d Brewer said.<\/p>\n

Pacione-Zayas questioned how Pettigrew can preside over a $1.4 billion agency that serves 65,000 households and includes some of Chicago\u2019s poorest residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m personally confused. I don\u2019t know how, if you\u2019re a candidate and you have not met the principal that appoints the board \u2014 I don\u2019t know how you can really move forward. It\u2019s really striking,\u201d Pacione-Zayas said Friday. \u201cIf I were the candidate, I would be asking the board, \u2018How come I haven\u2019t met the principal and I\u2019d like to set that up.\u2019 \u2026 It\u2019s concerning.\u201d <\/p>\n

Burnett\u2019s apparent conflicts of interest, according to the CHA and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, were with his 30-year record as alderman and longtime ownership of properties rented to housing voucher holders. Since 2007, Burnett and his wife have collected more than $260,000<\/a> as CHA voucher landlords.<\/p>\n

The board has been unable to consider Burnett, whom many CHA residents opposed, until the agency receives HUD-approved conflict waivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A top mayoral aide said Friday there will be \u201cconsequences\u201d for the Chicago Housing Authority\u2019s decision to hire…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":703078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-703077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116343437103281235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}