Members of the Council’s Black Caucus at Friday’s Finance Committee meeting successfully deferred a vote on a $3.5 billion bond offering for O’Hare Airport amid concerns over minority hiring and participation within the Department of Aviation and its outside contractors.
The motion to defer the bond offering to Monday’s Finance Committee meeting, called by Ald. Leslie Hairston (5), prevailed in 14 to 11 vote with two abstentions, following a long and heated debate over the Department of Aviation’s history of minority participation that Ald. Pat Dowell (3) on multiple occasions described as “appalling.”