CHICAGO — Alderman, alderwoman, alderperson — Chicago’s City Council members have gone by a lot of different names over the years.
But as the Feb. 28 municipal election approaches, their exact duties and responsibilities might get lost in the political horserace.
So, what exactly does an alderperson do?
Representing one of Chicago’s 50 wards, each alderperson must represent a community’s interests while acting as part of the city’s legislative body.
That means balancing their roles as “mini mayors” of their wards while proposing and vetting legislation in City Hall, especially the city’s annual budget, said former 47th Ward Ald. Ameya Pawar.
“I think Chicagoans want all of it. I think they want a feudal lord when it suits them. And I think they also want a legislator. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that; I just think that sometimes there’s some tension between those two,” said Pawar, who chose not to run again in 2019 after serving two terms.
In practice, an alderperson is someone a neighbor can go to when they’re having a problem in the area or with a city department, or when they want to advocate for a specific idea or policy.
Alderpeople serve four-year terms. As of September, they make $115,560-$142,772 a year although they are technically considered only part-time employees who can take outside jobs to supplement their income.
In Chicago, alderpeople have a unique political status because of how visible they are — or at least should be — in their community, Pawar said.
“The job is a lifestyle. Alders aren’t going Springfield or D.C., right? They’re not these folks who are kind of distant and people you only read about,” he said. “They’re your neighbors. You see them everywhere.”
City Services
Most Chicagoans talk to their alderperson when they have city service issues, like a pothole on their street or garbage that isn’t getting picked up.
Facilitating city services is “the main function people are familiar with” for their alderperson, said Dick Simpson, a University of Illinois Chicago professor and former alderperson.
That’s changed somewhat with the modernization of the city’s 311 system, which centralized many of those services and allows residents to report problems directly to the city.
“Garbage pickup and snow plow services, tree trimming. All of this has been centralized, right? It’s no longer done at a ward level,” Pawar said.
But Pawar and Simpson said it’s still common practice — and maybe a good idea — to report an issue directly to an alderperson’s office, which might be able to fast-track a solution within the city bureaucracy.
“Citizens can now report directly, but it’s always wise to tell the alderman and have the alderman’s staff check up, because they have more clout than the average citizen on many service matters,” Simpson said.
Still, there are limits to an alderperson’s powers, Pawar said.
“I think alders can play a major role, like if there is a specific street that hasn’t seen a plow after a big storm or if there’s something special in a certain alley that needs to be picked up, those are things that an alder can get involved in,” Pawar said. “But I think the misconception is that they have influence over every little thing that happens. They have a say in many things. But they don’t control everything.”
Policy
As the city’s legislators, City Council members can introduce ordinances and resolutions that range from adding permit parking or an honorary street sign to a residential street to approving a megadevelopment or altering major citywide policies.
One of alderpeople’s biggest responsibilities is passing the annual city budget, Simpson said. The 2023 city budget totaled $16.4 billion, funding every city expense, including the Police Department.
Simpson said budget oversight is an enormous power, but it’s one that isn’t always wielded by individual alderpeople.
“The problem is the city budget is 400 pages, 200,000 line items, and usually only maybe 10 aldermen can actually read it and only five or six pursue or propose any meaningful changes in the budget,” Simpson said.
Alderpeople regularly attend committee meetings to discuss proposed ordinances as well as full City Council meetings, which typically take place once a month.
One of the largest policy areas alderpeople directly influence is zoning.
Zoning changes are often sought by developers looking to build large developments across the city, although they can also be necessary for smaller residential additions and other projects. The full City Council must sign off on zoning amendments.
Zoning policy is “the last real bastion of aldermanic privilege or prerogative,” Simpson said. Typically, the council’s zoning committee will defer to the local alderperson when a zoning change comes before them, giving the alderperson massive power over what does or doesn’t get built in a ward.
But that system has been challenged in recent years. One major example was a high-profile battle over a Northwest Side affordable housing project in late 2021.
Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st) vehemently opposed the 297-apartment project near O’Hare Airport, saying his constituents did not support such a dense development.
City Council, with the backing of Mayor Lori Lighfoot, ultimately overruled Napolitano and approved the zoning change by a 33-13 vote.
Many alderpeople also have ward-level processes for involving neighbors in zoning decisions, which often include running major projects by local neighborhood groups.
Some alderpeople in recent years have also instituted what’s known as participatory budgeting. The process allows neighbors to weigh in on projects they’d like to see funded through aldermanic menu money, the $1.5 million alderpeople get every year to pay for infrastructure projects in their wards.
Public Safety
Crime and public safety have been hot-button topics in most aldermanic races this year.
Some alderpeople in recent years have used their menu money to fund cameras and other initiatives. Some have even pushed for private security patrols on commercial corridors.
Alderpeople can implement specific policies aimed at public safety issues, like recent penalties for people who assault first responders and overnight weekend parking bans to limit public partying.
They can also forge relationships with local police commanders to identify problem areas and potentially advocate for more officers, Pawar and Simpson said.
“They can see crime patterns and meet with the police commander to get better coverage of particular areas where crime is on the rise,” Simpson said.
Alderpeople can also influence how the city’s budget allocates money to the Police Department and violence prevention groups.
But Pawar said there are limits to what an individual alderperson can do to address crime.
“Even practically speaking, the mayor only has so much control over that, right? You’re putting forward a budget. There are lots of other factors that are outside of your control,” he said. “But I do think this is where more and more alders are talking about the root causes of crime. And I think that can only be addressed by taking a citywide perspective.”
Alderman vs. Alderperson
Alderman, alderwoman, alderperson, alder — what’s the correct way to refer to the City Council members?
For most of the city’s history, it was “alderman.” The state passed a measure in 2021 changing the term to the gender-neutral “alderperson” in legislative materials.
Many City Council members at the time bristled at the change, and two years later some still stick to alderman or alderwoman.
“I will always be an alderman … so if anybody wants to call me alderperson, I will consider that greatly disrespectful to me. You can refer to me as lot of things, just don’t refer to me as alderperson,” Ald. Nick Sposato (38th) said at the time. He later said that was a bit of an overreaction to what he called “leftist BS.”
The state change did not change how the city refers to its City Council members, leading to more confusion over the term.
“Legally, the state has rewritten it to be alderperson — they have simply changed references in the statutes, but I do not believe there is any kind of directive there, that is telling the city of Chicago what to call its elected officials,”city Deputy Corporation Counsel Jeff Levine said in 2021.