Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, speaks alongside Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022 at City Hall about the updated bivalent COVID-19 vaccine boosters that are now available. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune) (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
Chicago’s top public health official, who led the city through the COVID-19 pandemic, was let go by Mayor Brandon Johnson Friday, according to sources with firsthand knowledge.
Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady had said she wanted to stay on under the job in the new mayor’s administration, though Johnson had indicated on the campaign trail that he would not retain her if elected.
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The move came one day after the Chicago Board of Health voted to send a letter to Johnson recommending that Arwady remain in her post.
Arwady’s termination is part of a larger cabinet shakeup at City Hall that also say the city’s chief of planning and development exit his role.
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Planning and Development Commissioner Maurice Cox told his staff in an email Friday that he’s leaving his job, a high-level leadership change at City Hall that comes as Johnson approaches 100 days in office and appears poised to decide how many of his predecessor Lori Lightfoot’s allies to retain.
Both Cox and Arwady were apppointed by Lightfoot.
Arwady became a household name during the pandemic, providing regular updates on case numbers and restrictions, rolling out vaccination efforts and explaining how people could best protect themselves from infection. But she was criticized in some circles for being too hasty in loosening pandemic restrictions, especially in reopening public schools, and went against activists’ demands regarding environmental permitting and mental health services.
In addition to her leadership on COVID-19, Arwady pushed to expand mental health services citywide and the “Family Connects” program providing in-home nursing visits for newborns, and was a driving force behind an executive order on environmental justice that Lightfoot issued at the end of her term. Arwady also worked to ensure equitable vaccine access for vulnerable Black and brown residents when the vaccine became available.
A Department of Planning and Development spokesperson said Cox’s last day was still to be determined and a spokesperson for the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Cox, the former director of planning and development for the city of Detroit, was an early appointee of Lightfoot to lead the city’s planning department, which oversees the city’s economic development efforts, planning and zoning functions.
While previous planning heads were locals steeped in big real estate deals, Cox’s strengths were in architecture, design and resident-centered developments. He served as mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia, design director for the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington, D.C., and was a practicing architect in Florence, Italy.
When Cox was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters earlier this year, Johnson said he was “proud to have him on my team and look forward to working with him to build a better, stronger, safer Chicago.”
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Maurice Cox, Chicago Commissioner of Planning and Development at rooftop garden on the Chicago City Hall in 2019. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
Lightfoot praised Cox in a tweet Friday, saying his “indelible mark is left on every block in every neighborhood that hungered for investments and respect. Well done, Commissioner.”
Cox’s primary mandate was to shift the focus away from downtown and spearhead Lightfoot’s signature Invest South/West program, championing equity-centered investments in targeted South and West side neighborhoods. Cox told the Tribune in 2019 he saw Chicago as having a heart (its booming downtown) and a soul (its motley collection of neighborhoods). Those neighborhoods would be his primary focus, though relatively early in his tenure, Cox was criticized by aldermen for a failure to communicate about neighborhood projects.
While Lightfoot and Cox claimed several Invest South/West victories, the city failed to meet its goal to have shovels in the ground on city-subsidized Invest South/West projects within 18 months, according to a Crain’s analysis last fall. A January Tribune analysis separately found $409 million of the $757 million in city-funded projects included as Invest South/West projects were either already underway when Lightfoot took office, dedicated to standard building repairs or were still in the conceptual phase. And despite promises that spending would be community-driven, the Illinois Answers Project also spoke to several community leaders who said Lightfoot’s administration was opaque about how winning projects were selected.
The COVID-19 pandemic also upended downtown’s sunny prospects, with fewer workers coming into the office and relocators opting for newer buildings in the West Loop.
Cox’s successor will be charged with managing the next steps for the megadevelopments at Lincoln Yards, the Bronzeville Lakefront, and the 78; efforts to accommodate the Chicago Bears and potentially transform Soldier Field and the surrounding Museum Campus in the event that they leave; the potential construction of the Bally’s casino at the current site of the Tribune’s printing plant and the future of Invest South/West.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson fires health commissioner Arwady
