Gardiner targets critics for removal

On November 21, 2019, Alderman Gardiner met with members of Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD) as well as a subset of Commissioners from the Six Corners Special Service Area (SSA #28) to discuss the Alderman’s threats to hold up the SSA budget if a member of the Commission, who he felt had been critical of him, wasn’t removed from her post.

Earlier in the year, Gardiner had threatened to hold up the budget if members of the Six Corners Association’s Board didn’t resign. He claimed two of these members had made one or more negative comments about him on social media, his reasons for targeting the third were unclear. In an effort to appease the Alderman and not stand in the way of progress, the Six Corners Association made several other concessions and each of the three Board members resigned.

Gardiner did not hold up his end of the bargain, which led to the November meeting. Since he still had leverage by holding up the budget, he continued to make new demands. He demanded that the SSA change their bylaws in such a way that would prevent one of the Commissioners from regaining her position once her term expired. You can read about it in more detail in Block Club’s coverage.

Bizarrely, Gardiner tried to get the SSA Commissioners to vote on the spot in the DPD meeting to change the Bylaws - despite not having quorum and what would be an obvious violation of the Open Meetings Act. Equally as strangely, Gardiner seemed to make an on the spot decision to hire Anne Kamykowski to join his office staff. At the time, Kamykowski was the Interim Executive Director for the Six Corners Chamber of Commerce, who attended the meeting with him in a consultative capacity - another deal which he seems to have reneged on based on her emails.