These brand new elected officials are key to Chicago’s police reform legislation—but it remains unclear how they’ll operate once in office.

By India Daniels

A Chicagoan confronts police officials at a Police Board meeting in 2018. New police district councils could provide a hyperlocal way for residents to weigh in on police affairs. (Photo: Pat Nabong)

A version of this article was first published in the Documenters Newswire newsletter on February 17, 2023.

In this month’s local elections, Chicagoans will elect people to the arguably least-known office on the ballot: police district council. The position is brand-new and extremely part-time, and most candidates are relying on shoestring campaign budgets. It’s no surprise that a lot of Chicagoans haven’t really wrapped their heads around them.

Other elected offices on the ballot — mayor, alder, treasurer, clerk — require a full-time commitment to providing a range of services to residents of a specific geographic area. 

The role of a police district council member is different. Each member is expected to spend about 20 hours a month on improving public safety and police accountability in their community and shaping citywide policies, for which they will receive a $500 stipend each month of their four-year term. 

Our closest point of reference for this new type of public body may be local school councils (LSCs), made up of parents and community members elected to oversee the principal and the school’s academic improvement plan. The difference is that LSCs have a separate election process and are relatively decentralized, with few channels to impact Chicago Public Schools’ policies on a citywide level. 

The police district councils are another layer of bureaucracy (and more names on the ballot to choose between), but they could change how we think about the role of “regular people” in public policy. We don’t yet know what their impact will be, but it will be an interesting experiment.

HOW WE GOT HERE

The police district councils are the result of years of organizing for accountability in response to police corruption and brutality. Two groups advocating for different models, the Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) and the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA), joined forces in 2021 to get the Empower Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance passed that summer (see Newswire’s 2021 recap of key public meetings on this legislation).

The new law set up spaces for both citywide and hyperlocal input via the seven-member appointed Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) and the 22 elected police district councils.

Lightfoot’s administration was slow to appoint CCPSA members and hire key staff, so the commission started meeting just a few months ago, in September 2022 (Documenters coverage of select CCPSA meetings can be found here). While there have been many delays, the swearing in of 66 district council members this spring means the apparatus will be roughly in place.

WHAT THEY'LL DO

Once elected, each of the three members of a police district’s council will focus on a different aspect of public safety relations:

  • Community engagement coordinator: Listen to residents and help them navigate Chicago’s public safety functions.

  • District council chair: Facilitate collaboration between local police and residents on community policing and restorative justice initiatives.

  • Nominating committee delegate: Represent the district on a citywide level and work with reps from the other 21 districts to recommend policies to the CCPSA, as well as nominees to serve on the commission.

 The ECPS ordinance says that each district council will have 30 days to assign these roles, but doesn’t specify how council members might go about making that decision. 

Not requiring candidates to indicate which role they want to perform makes for a simpler voting process, but could set new council mates up for a power struggle on day one. Each role will be performed very differently depending on who holds it and their views on policing. And while all will serve important functions, the nominating committee delegate will hold the most direct political power.

See also: What do police district councils do? via the Chicago Reader.

WHO THEY ARE

Over 100 people are running for police district council (though not all districts have at least three candidates), each with their own take on what public safety looks and feels like. Some want to work toward abolition of policing and prisons and alternative safety structures, while others have deep faith in the police and a reticence toward talk of accountability. Others fall somewhere in between these poles, and are motivated by violence in their neighborhood. Most are already active in their communities, and they may aspire to higher elected office. 

Some candidates who are running in the same district have formed a slate, meaning they share views, have endorsed each other and want to work together. While the candidates have formed an alliance, however, they’re still competing for the same spots; the council seats will go to the three people who get the most votes, regardless of whether they were part of a slate.

See also: 2023 Chicago Police District Councils Voter Guide compiled by the Chicago Reader and South Side Weekly.

More detail on candidates, in their own words, can be found on this site maintained by ECPS, the coalition that worked to pass the ordinance. Coalition members also created the Empowered Communities Voter Guide, which evaluates candidates based on their answers to a questionnaire about their stance on police reform, mental health crisis response, CPD’s ShotSpotter contract and more.

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