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| del VALLE: New school board president |
Yet
there are those who have argued incessantly that giving the mayor the authority
to make such appointments is far too much power and influence to be entrusting
to one individual.
SO
I’M GOING to be curious to see what kind of reaction arises to the fact that
newly-elected Mayor Lori Lightfoot has gone ahead and made appointments to the
school board.
Seven,
to be exact, including the pick of one-time city Clerk and state Senator Miguel
del Valle to serve as the new school board president.
Who,
as somebody who once tried himself running for mayor against Richard M. Daley,
has a political reputation of someone who wasn’t exactly a part of the old boys
network and was interested in bringing about change.
Which
would sort of put him in line with the image the Lightfoot is trying to create
for her own term as mayor. Although Lightfoot herself was opposed to the bill
that would have created an elected school board for Chicago (just like all the
suburbs have), because she thought the bill’s mechanism was too convoluted.
BUT
ARE THE people who view Lightfoot as being all about change and shaking
everything up going to accept a school board that they didn’t personally pick?
It
could be the big issue. Although I don’t have much of a qualm about accepting
it – largely because I think it’s absurd to go about expecting voters (many of
whom think there already are too many obscure political posts to have to pick
people for) to make qualified choices.
I
could easily envision an elected school board becoming a lot like all those judicial
posts people are asked to make picks for. Many would wind up skipping over the
ballot spots, while others would randomly pick people without much of a clue as
to who they’re voting for.
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| LIGHTFOOT: Picks former mayoral challenger |
And
yes, I’d put into that category the kind of people who say only semi-jokingly
that they look for good Irish-sounding names on the ballot; figuring that’s a
sound of respectability and experience.
PERSONALLY,
I THINK it is nonsense, and there have been times I’ve been spiteful enough to
deliberately vote against an Irish-sounding name – just because I figure that
candidate will get too many votes from other people.
I
did find it interesting that Lightfoot, amongst her school board picks, were
people with education backgrounds – instead of what often becomes of school
boards. They get filled with people who have electoral ambitions who, for
whatever reason, wind up being unable to find any other office for which to run.
And
the idea of del Valle in the top post is also intriguing – and not just because
I personally have an interest in seeing increased political empowerment of
officials with Latino ethnic backgrounds.
I’ll
admit that any Spanish-sounding name on a ballot usually gets a second-glance
and extra bit of consideration. So the idea of del Valle – once the first head
of a Latino caucus in the General Assembly – isn’t exactly the most outrageous
pick that a mayor could make to be in charge of the school board.
WOULD
HE HAVE had a chance of getting the post if it had been up to voters making
picks on the ballot?
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| EMANUEL: Would he have ever appointed del Valle? |
I don’t know. I suppose he might have, IF the political bosses who put together candidate slates would have seen a benefit to themselves to having del Valle be in the running for the post.
But
this may have been an example of how we’re better off with the school board
members being political appointees. After all, we always can hold the mayor
accountable for her picks if they turn out to be poor ones.
Besides,
I suspect the desire of many people to have an elected school board will wither
away, now that we have a mayor, such as Rahm Emanuel, whom many of them found
so objectionable and whom they were eager to diminish in authority to whatever
degree was possible.
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