Chicago City Wire

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot took her feud with Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 President John Catanzara  to a personal level on Thursday when she called him a 'racist.'

“(Catanzara) has demonstrated over and over again he’s racist. He’s a misogynist. He’s xenophobic. He hates immigrants and refugees,” Lightfoot told the Chicago Sun Times. “I think people in (Ald. Sivana Tabares') ward need to ask why she is carrying the water for a guy like that.”

Lightfoot and the city were sued by over 130 city workers, including firefighters, seeking to stop the mandate. A contingent of police have filed a separate lawsuit.

Lightfoot and the FOP  met in court Thursday.

The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police and Cantazara have disputed Lightfoot’s actions in what they say is an overreach not included in the police and fire union’s collective bargaining agreement. 

Cook County Judge Moshe Jacobius urged the two sides to set their “frustrations” aside and to come to an agreement.

Lightfoot’s comments came as City Council is set to vote on an ordinance on Oct. 25 that would dispose of her executive order mandating vaccines for the city’s more than 35,000 employees.

So far 13 aldermen signed on to the proposed ordinance, including Tabares.

“Our city workers have been working throughout this pandemic and they deserve more than edicts, they deserve respect,” Tabares said in a Facebook post.  “The residents we represent deserve an open and transparent hearing to force the mayor to justify her actions and to demonstrate that she made all efforts to work collaboratively with the invested parties. I urge my colleagues to support this measure because whether you agree with vaccines or not, we need to be at the table because whatever the outcome, we will have to answer to the residents about how we were engaged in this process.”

Later in the day Lightfoot said she would do “everything I can to stop” the ordinance, which she called “foolishness.”

The court hearing came just after the FOP accused Chicago’s administration of making an example out of 21 police officers who were placed on no-pay status following efforts by police and firefighters to organize against Lightfoot’s vaccine mandate.

Alderman Ed Burke is proposing another ordinance that would allow the suspended police officers to continue utilizing health benefits.

Fewer than 70 percent of the city’s police officers have uploaded their vaccine status to the city’s vaccine portal. The fire department is a close second.

The two organizations have sought to give voice to their community.

“Our end goal is to get rid of this vaccine mandate, which I believe is what most people feel the end goal is,” Brendan Hehir, a paramedic with the Chicago Fire Department, recently said in a video.

For his advocacy against the vaccine mandate the FOP’s Cantazara was recently muzzled by a judge and disallowed from using social media for two weeks.

The city and Lightfoot are seeking a 10-day extension to that ban.

“People just need to sign up and be in compliance,” Lightfoot told the Chicago Sun Times.