Records show Mayor Brandon Johnson traveled to Los Angeles earlier this month with seven city employees – including four members of his security detail – at a cost to the taxpayers of nearly $8,000, though that figure may be higher given the heavy redactions of the documents obtained.
Johnson went to Los Angeles on Feb. 2 for a conference of the African American Mayors Association, then stayed to attend the Grammy Awards the evening of Feb. 4, according to his schedule.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, NBC 5 Investigates obtained his daily schedule for the trip as well as records showing charges to the City of Chicago’s American Express business travel account in connection with the trip.
Airline transaction details show Johnson traveled with executive assistant Ashlee Horton, as well as senior advisor Jason Lee and senior project manager Maurice Robinson. The names of four individuals were redacted. They appear to be Chicago police officers, part of the mayor’s security detail. When asked how many officers routinely travel with the mayor, CPD pointed to the mayor’s office. A spokesman for the mayor said, “4 is standard.”
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter here.
Airfare, lodging and travel agency fees for the trip cost a combined $7,949.96, records show. But the city redacted some of the additional expenses, like rental cars and a full page of charges, citing privacy concerns.
Those heavy redactions raise questions about transparency – and just how much the trip actually cost.
“When you’re the mayor of a city like Chicago, the public has a right to know what you are doing on their behalf and is owed explanation of why that’s a valuable investment on our part as taxpayers,” said the Better Government Association’s David Greising. “To be aggressive in redacting information doesn’t follow through on that obligation and to not explain why redactions are made is fitting into a pattern of not being responsive to legitimate public interest in the mayor’s activities.”
Local
The release of the redacted records came amid a rocky few weeks for Johnson. The Chicago Sun-Times revealed Monday that the mayor and his team left an editorial board meeting when his press secretary insisted – and the Sun-Times refused – that the meeting be off the record.
Some have questioned the optics of Johnson’s attendance at the Grammys when there are crises at home – migrants and school shootings, among others – yet he has limited his interactions with Chicago media, sometimes going weeks at a time without taking any questions.
“Sometimes it appears that Mayor Johnson enjoys the trappings of office more than he enjoys other public parts of his work, in particular the need for the mayor to be responsive to questions to the public’s legitimate interest in what he is doing,” Greising said. “If he wants to attend the Grammys, all power to him. If he likes the Grammys, great. But he can’t enjoy those benefits of office and not uphold his end of the bargain and be responsive to the public’s interest, as channeled through reporters often, in what he is doing.”
“The mayor’s not yet a full year into his term in office. Maybe he’s learning as he goes, maybe he’ll get better,” Greising continued. “It’s not too late for a reset yet but the clock is ticking and that time is running out fast.”
“This kind of careful tracking of the mayor’s activities that NBC 5 is doing that is a reminder to the public that the mayor is spending our money and a reminder to the mayor that we’re watching as well,” he added.
