Chicago mayor exchanged emails with lobbyist as city ethics board declined to enforce lobbying ban

CHICAGO — Months after a new law took effect banning elected public officials from lobbying Chicago City Hall, Mayor Lori Lightfoot exchanged emails with a lobbyist who would have been barred under the new standards had they been enforced, the Chicago Tribune has learned.

Flossmoor trustee Gyata Kimmons emailed Lightfoot in August on behalf of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, a real estate company he lobbies City Hall on behalf of with tenants at O’Hare International Airport, records show.

The back-and-forth occurred months after Lightfoot introduced her own plan that would have rolled back part of the city’s lobbying ordinance that prohibited elected officials such as Kimmons from lobbying city officials while keeping his suburban elected post.

The lobbying ban went into effect April 14 and the mayor’s idea died earlier this month when aldermen rejected it. A federal lawsuit was filed last week arguing the city’s new rules are unconstitutional.

While Lightfoot’s ordinance was pending, Kimmons continued lobbying the city. During that time, the city Ethics Board declined to enforce the restrictions against lobbying by elected officials on the grounds that if Lightfoot’s proposal passed, it would nullify them.

The Tribune previously reported about Kimmons’ continued work at City Hall despite the ethics ban but newly released emails show he was in direct contact with Lightfoot about his clients.

In one email, dated Aug. 31, Kimmons requested a virtual meeting between the mayor and his client’s leadership team about her “interest in growing small and diverse businesses at the airports.”

“I’m following up on one part of our discussion regarding my Westfield client. As a reminder, they are the concession manager at O’Hare’s Terminal 5,” Kimmons wrote. “As we discussed, they have great relationships with CDA, but hearing directly from you expounding upon your interest in growing small and diverse businesses at the airports (and citywide) would go a long way.”

Kimmons also thanked her for her “forthrightness and candor” during an unspecified dinner and wrote, “always good to close the door and let our hair down for a minute.”

Less than an hour later, Lightfoot replied that she would reach out to have a high-ranking aide discuss specifics.

“A virtual meeting seems fine,” Lightfoot wrote.

In response to questions about the emails, Lightfoot spokeswoman Jordan Troy released a statement saying the mayor has known Kimmons “for years” and they “were both in attendance at a purely social gathering in August 2020 where no lobbying occurred.”

The mayor’s office also noted that the ethics board wasn’t enforcing the lobbying ban at the time.

Lightfoot campaigned for mayor on a platform of government ethics reform at a time that City Hall was under the cloud of a federal public corruption investigation. Her attempt to weaken the lobbying reform law has drawn criticism from some aldermen and others at City Hall who think it contradicts her campaign pledge to “Bring in the Light.”

Lincoln Park Alderwoman Michele Smith, 43rd, who co-sponsored the tougher rules on lobbying, said Tuesday that because the Ethics Board wasn’t enforcing them when Kimmons exchanged emails with Lightfoot, she doesn’t see an issue.

Kimmons could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Emails obtained through an open records request show Kimmons also emailed Lightfoot in April on Westfield’s behalf, just two days after the lobbying ban went into effect and the same month Lightfoot brought forward her own lobbying ordinance.

Lightfoot’s proposal later stalled in a City Council committee in the face of criticism from aldermen who said it would weaken Chicago’s standards at a time the city needs strong ethics rules to build public trust.

In the April email, Kimmons said he wanted to work with the city on a “Concessions Relief Package” for airport tenants.

“I would welcome an opportunity for Westfield to participate in the package’s formation and for a general discussion about the future of O’Hare concessions,” Kimmons wrote on April 16. “It is my understanding that you’re seeking to grow the number of small and diverse business owners able to participate at the airports — which I applaud and Westfield supports.”

It’s unclear what came of those efforts.

The City Council last December unanimously passed the ethics law that took effect in April barring Chicago aldermen from lobbying the county, the state or any other local government units, and prohibiting any other elected officials in the state from lobbying the City Council, the mayor or other units of city government.

But the lobbying ban on officials has been a source of friction between Lightfoot and the City Council.

With federal investigators probing lobbying activities at the state level, the measure was touted as an effort by aldermen who backed the change to set rules to try to make sure elected officials look out for the best interests of the people who elected them, not special interests.

Lightfoot then introduced her own ordinance, arguing the tighter lobbying standards passed by the council went too far by applying to elected officials in other jurisdictions. While the City Council weighed whether to amend the law, Chicago’s ethics board delayed enforcing the measure.

The board of ethics later said it would begin enforcing the lobbying ban on elected officials beginning Oct. 1. The Ethics Board also said Kimmons was the only lobbyist it identified who appeared to run afoul of the tighter rules.

Smith, the City Council’s ethics chair, said she opposed Lightfoot’s idea, and the mayor appeared to drop it. But Lightfoot’s ordinance got new life in late September, when West Side Alderman Jason Ervin, 28th, used a parliamentary procedure to try to force an up-or-down vote on it by the full council. Smith agreed to instead hold a hearing on it in her committee, where it was unanimously defeated.

Alderman Matt O’Shea, who chairs the City Council Aviation Committee and co-sponsored the lobbying ban, released a statement saying he was “not aware of or involved in any conversations between the Mayor and Mr. Kimmons or anyone associated with Westfield regarding the Concessions Relief Package.”

“Earlier this month, I spoke out against a proposal to relax restrictions on cross-lobbying and am proud that the Ethics Committee unanimously voted down that ordinance,” he said.

Kimmons was paid $139,000 by his clients for lobbying between April 1 and June 30, according to city records.

Asked Tuesday about the emails between Kimmons and Lightfoot, city ethics board executive director Steve Berlin reiterated that the board was waiting for the City Council to consider Lightfoot’s proposal to scale back the lobbying ban before enforcing the law.

“The Board is responsible for enforcing all aspects of the Governmental Ethics Ordinance, including the lobbying laws. We are fully committed to fulfilling that responsibility, and to effective and immediate enforcement of this law,” Berlin said.

But, Berlin also noted that Wilmette library board trustee Dan Johnson filed a lawsuit against the city last week seeking to block the law. Johnson’s lawsuit argues that the ban violates his First Amendment rights.

Johnson has never been registered to lobby Chicago government, according to the ethics board, and did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

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