The 25th Police District Council submitted three finalists to the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, which will recommend which one of them should fill the vacancy created after councilor Saul Arellano resigned in April.
As part of the 2021 police accountability reform package, each of Chicago’s 22 police districts got three-member elected district councils to work toward improving public safety, recommend policies and help nominate commissioners to the city-wide CCPSA. The first election was held in 2023.
CCPSA has until September to review the finalists and send their recommendation to Mayor Brandon Johnson. The commission meets on the last Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m., and the next meeting will be held July 30 at Copernicus Center, 5216 W. Lawrence Ave.
Councilor Angelica Green, the only Austinite currently on the council, told Austin Weekly News that, with the police superintendent Larry Snelling retiring, she doesn’t expect CCPSA to consider the matter until its Aug. 27 meeting, which will be held at Morgan Park Academy, 2153 W. 111th St.
25th Police District is the largest West Side police district, spanning the area between Belmont Avenue, Central Park Avenue, Division Street and the city border. That includes Galewood and other parts of Austin north of Division Street, as well as West Humboldt Park, Montclare, Belmont-Cragin and Hermosa, and portions of Logan Square, Avondale and Dunning.
District Councils hold monthly community meetings to get resident input on safety issues, and those meetings often include workshops and presentations on public safety topics. The district councils can propose CPD policies to CCPSA, and it can push for public hearings – a power that the majority of district councilors used late last year to force CCPSA to hold a public hearing on the alleged collaboration between CPD and federal immigration enforcement agencies. Councilors get a $500 monthly stipend.
Green told Austin Weekly News that five candidates submitted the applications by the May 29 deadline. She and current 25th district council chair Jacob Arena interviewed the candidates in late June, and finalized the slate during the July 11 special meeting.
Arena said that they picked the finalists Carlos Vasquez, Geary Yonker and Isela Juarez based on several factors.
“When we were making our decision, a lot of it was [about] who is already known in the community, who is already doing this work and who will have the time to [serve on the council],” he said.
Geary Yonker of Logan Square is a long-time historic preservation advocate and currently a member of the Logan Square Arts Foundation board of directors. Arena said that Vasquez, of Belmont-Cragin, actively volunteers in his community. He said that Juarez is a district resident who had a bad experience with the 25th District and wanted to do her part to reform the system.
Under the Chicago municipal code, when a vacancy is created, Chicago mayors fill the vacancies, and the city council either confirms or votes down his picks. But, as with the process of appointing police superintendents and heads of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the mayor must pick from a small pool of candidates.
First, the remaining members of the district council must interview the candidates and select three finalists. CCPSA then evaluates the finalists and sends their recommendations to the mayor. The code doesn’t give the mayor the option to reject all three finalists.
The appointee will serve out the remainder of Arellano’s term, which will end on May 4. All three seats will be up for grabs during the Feb. 23, 2027 mayoral elections. Unlike most city seats, there will be no run-off – voters will vote for three candidates, and the top three vote-getters will become councilors.
Any registered voter who lived in the 25th District for at least a year is eligible to run. Arena, Green and Arellano’s replacement can run to keep their seats. The municipal code does limit councilors to three full-length terms, and those terms don’t have to be consecutive.
