At least three Chicago aldermen are urging Chicago Park District Board chair Avis LaVelle to resign in the wake of an independent report that found district management failed to properly investigate widespread claims of sexual assault, sexual harassment and bullying involving Park District lifeguards, CBS Chicago reported.
Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward) was the first alderman to call for LaVelle and other Park District officials to resign. Ald. Michele Smith (43rd) and Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd) also have called for LaVelle to step down.
According to an independent investigator’s report, recently resigned Park District superintendent Mike Kelly took no action until six months after he had received a complaint about abuse from the parents of a female lifeguard.
On Nov. 2, LaVelle issued a press release in which she said, in part, “On behalf of myself, the board of commissioners and the entire CPD staff, let me say that we owe both a sincere apology and of a debt of gratitude to the brave young women who came forward to share their painful stories of humiliation and abuse at the hands of colleagues and supervisors as lifeguards in the Chicago Park District.
“Their allegations were credible and taken seriously from the point they were turned over the Inspector General in March of 2020. We were simply dysfunctional in our approach to this investigation, and I apologize for what has been a slow, tortured process.” LaVelle’s full statement is at http://windycitytimes.com/lgbt/Chicago-Park-District-board-president-addresses-lifeguards-complaints-mayor-comments-/71652.html.