Longtime City Hall spokesman Bill McCaffrey was fired Friday after elevating moral issues with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s workplace.
A supply near the ex-spokesman advised the Chicago Sun-Times McCaffrey was abruptly escorted out of the town Law Department workplace, the place he labored because the $126,504-per-year public affairs director.
”Bill McCaffrey is now not with the Office of the Corporation Counsel,” Lightfoot’s workplace mentioned in a press release Saturday. “As this is a personnel matter, we will not be commenting further.”
Bill McCaffreyLinkedIn photograph
Reached Saturday, McCaffrey declined to touch upon his firing.
He had expressed concern concerning the Lightfoot administration’s method to sure points, although it’s not clear what these points had been, the supply mentioned.
In his position with the legislation division, McCaffrey had supplied the information media with feedback on lawsuits and different high-profile litigation involving the town, together with the Laquan McDonald and Jussie Smollett scandals.
In some 15 years at City Hall, he additionally served as chief spokesman for a handful of different metropolis companies below three mayoral administrations relationship again to 2006. That included stints with the previous Department of Consumer Services, the Department of Buildings and Chicago Public Schools, plus serving as a prime communications aide to former mayors RIchard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel.
“He was never shy to tell you if he thought the city was about to do something he thought was a mistake,” mentioned a former metropolis staffer who requested to not be named. “That might’ve rubbed some people the wrong way, but that’s honest feedback you need.”
McCaffrey’s ouster follows summer season turnover on the prime of Lightfoot’s communications staff. The freshman mayor’s first communications director, Marielle Sainvilus, abruptly resigned in mid-August, barely three months into Lightfoot’s time period.
Sainvilus was changed by Michael Crowley.