As city Inspector General Joe Ferguson left office last October, Mayor Lori Lightfoot vowed she would name a successor who would understand the importance of “staying in their lane” as the new IG.
Lightfoot’s petulant statement was not surprising: She and Ferguson had clashed repeatedly. Partly, that comes with the job descriptions. It’s the IG’s purpose to deliver revelations about malfunctions in city government. And it is the fate of Chicago mayors to be made uncomfortable by IGs who simply do their jobs.
Credit goes to Lightfoot, then, for naming a successor, Deborah Witzburg, who rode shotgun with Ferguson as, from Lightfoot’s perspective, he repeatedly crossed double-yellow lines. Ferguson was bold in the way he publicly advocated for more effective and honest government, embracing the police transparency issue in particular. Ferguson’s reports crashed into the mayor’s efforts to project an image that city government was functioning effectively with her at the wheel.
In fact, as deputy IG for public safety, Witzburg bore responsibility for some of the harder hitting IG reports of Lightfoot’s term as mayor. They criticized the reliability of the city’s ShotSpotter technology, which is designed to identify gunfire and direct police officers where to respond. She played a key role, too, in the IG report that served as a rebuke of the Chicago Police Department’s handling of unrest following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.
And those were the IG reports that actually saw the light of day. Despite a postelection promise of unprecedented transparency, Lightfoot never did release a Ferguson report that detailed the alcohol-infused traffic stop of then-police Superintendent Eddie Johnson. And the mayor’s decision to engage a private-practice law firm, Jones Day, to investigate the botched Chicago police raid on the home of Anjanette Young — the social worker who was handcuffed while naked in her apartment, then watched as the cops slowly discovered they had invaded the wrong address — compromised the IG’s investigation of that case.
Witzburg was viewed as a qualified Ferguson successor from the start. She resigned soon after Ferguson stepped down, to stay clear of any appearance she was using her IG position to angle for a promotion, and she kept herself available even as the search dragged on.
Even after Lightfoot rejected an initial slate of candidates that included her and demanded a reboot of the search, Witzburg’s name stayed in the mix. That’s fortunate for the city, because it would be hard to imagine a candidate with more direct experience of the challenges facing the city, and the difficulties facing the IG’s office.
Her qualifications are clear. A graduate of Brown University and Northwestern University School of Law, she served as an assistant Cook County state’s attorney for five years before joining the IG’s office. Once there, she focused on public safety from the start.
Today, no single area of city government is more important, or in greater need of IG oversight. Witzburg’s influence was felt on an IG report in early March that showed system disparities in police stops and use of force along racial lines — with Black residents stopped by police out of all proportion to their population throughout the city of Chicago.
In naming Witzburg as the next IG, the first woman to hold the position, Lightfoot is delivering a good result. But the long delay and a distinct lack of transparency about the process has exposed flaws in the way IGs are chosen that should be repaired right away, while memories of the shortcomings are still fresh.
For starters, it took far too long. Once an IG leaves office, there is no statutory timeline for naming a replacement. This offered Lightfoot more time than she needed, and with an election looming next year, it seemed at times she was slow-walking the process.
Open Meetings Act requirements have not been met. Communication from the selection committee was nonexistent, including to members of City Council. Even the selection of the firm that conducted the search on the city’s behalf for a time was shrouded in secrecy. The Better Government Association’s policy team in February put forward a set of reforms that would address these and other concerns.
There are costs to the kind of delay we have seen and the mysteries surrounding the selection process. IG investigations take months, often more than a year. With no deadlines governing the nomination process, Lightfoot could take her time, knowing an office headed by an interim IG was unlikely to deliver the sort of blockbuster reports that issued from the office with Ferguson in charge. Such a delay could be a convenience as Lightfoot seeks reelection next year.
The IG office’s current general counsel, Rory McHale, in early March filed to run for Cook County commissioner for the 8th District. While this is legal, it’s worth wondering whether McHale would have stepped into an election campaign, putting the office’s reputation for independence from politics at risk, while serving under an IG Ferguson or IG Witzburg.
It seems evident that Lightfoot’s appointment of Witzburg seeks to burnish the mayor’s credentials with progressives who want to see her clean up city government. The mayor could do even better by supporting reforms to the IG selection process in ways that ensure uninterrupted, vigorous, independent oversight for a city government that badly needs it.
David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.
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