Mayor Brandon Johnson on Friday picked Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th Ward) to lead the Chicago Park District, elevating one of his closest allies on the Chicago City Council to oversee the city’s 600 parks and 6,000 employees.

The Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners is set to make Ramirez-Rosa’s selection official Friday afternoon, allowing him to replace Rosa Escareño on April 1, after he resigns from the City Council, where he served for a decade representing parts of Logan Square, Hermosa, Avondale, Irving Park and Albany Park.

“I loved being the alderman of the 35th Ward,” Ramirez-Rosa, 36, said. “But you can’t turn down a job like this when you love Chicago as much as I do.”

Johnson praised Ramirez-Rosa as an effective leader.

“Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa is a passionate public servant with a decade of municipal leadership experience and a successful track record of building coalitions and delivering significant community investments,” Johnson said in a statement.

Johnson said Ramirez-Rosa would work to make the park district “more equitable and accessible, particularly in disinvested communities.”

Escareño took over the Chicago Park District in October 2021 and earned $230,000 annually after serving as the commissioner of the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection under Mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot. In all, Escareño served under five Chicago mayors during her 35-year career.

In the statement announcing his selection of Ramirez Rosa, Johnson praised Escareño for leading the park district “during a difficult time and (doing) the hard work of rebuilding trust in communities across the city.”

Lightfoot had tapped the then-recently retired Escareño to lead the park district after she fired former Chicago Park District Superintendent Mike Kelly for mishandling complaints from girls and young women working at Chicago’s beaches and pools who were being abused, assaulted and harassed.

Escareño told WTTW News’ “Chicago Tonight: Latino Voices” that now is the right time for her to retire for good.

“It’s the right time, because when I came to the district, I set very clear goals for myself and I have reached the goals that I set for myself,” Escareño said.

Escareño said her decision was not related to remarks Johnson made on Feb. 10, when he told a crowd that he should have “cleaned house faster” when he took office in May 2023 and would terminate those city employees who did not share his vision for Chicago.

“If you ain’t with us, you just gotta go,” Johnson said. “So now I’m in a position now where I’ll be making some decisions in the days to come because playing nice with other people who ain’t about us, it’s just a waste of exercise.”

Ramirez-Rosa said Escareño is “an amazing public servant” and was thrilled she was able to “retire on her own terms” after steadying the park district following the lifeguard scandal.

“I plan to build on her legacy,” said Ramirez-Rosa, who has never before led a large organization.

Ramirez-Rosa said he would focus on park safety, expanding job opportunities for Chicago’s youth and improving equity across the system.

Chicago Park District Board President Dr. Marlon Everett said in a statement released by the mayor’s office he would support the Johnson's pick and praised Ramirez-Rosa as a “proven public servant who will work in the interest of all Chicagoans.”

Ramirez-Rosa’s City Council Legacy

Ramirez-Rosa won his seat to the City Council in 2015, when he unseated Ald. Rey Colon, who was aligned with Emanuel. With the support of U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, Ramirez-Rosa became one of the youngest people and first gay Latino to be elected to the City Council. He soon also became the first alderperson to join the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

In 2018, Ramirez-Rosa briefly ran for lieutenant governor alongside Daniel Biss, who was then a state senator, before being dropped from the ticket by Biss because of Ramirez-Rosa’s support of a movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israel. Later than same year, Ramirez-Rosa announced a bid to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Luis Guiterrez before dropping out and endorsing García.

A thorn in the side of first Emanuel and then Lightfoot, Ramirez-Rosa was re-elected three times and was joined in 2019 by five other members of Democratic Socialists of America who shifted the balance of political power on the City Council decidedly to the left.

In 2022, Ramirez-Rosa brokered the deal that ended the bitter and racially divisive fight over new boundaries for Chicago’s 50 wards and crafted the compromise measure that led to the creation of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability.

Ramirez-Rosa became the dean of the five-member Democratic Socialist Caucus, which expanded with the election of Ald. Angela Clay to represent Uptown’s 46th Ward in 2023. The caucus’s veterans, who all backed Johnson in the 2023 election, were tapped to lead City Council committees, cementing their status as the new powerbrokers at City Hall.

For six months in 2023, Ramirez-Rosa was the most influential member of the Chicago City Council.

The chair of the City Council’s powerful Zoning Committee and Johnson’s floor leader, Ramirez-Rosa was poised to help Johnson, the most progressive person ever elected mayor, steer Chicago in a new direction.

During the mayor’s first months in office, Ramirez-Rosa helped push through measures that will phase out the tipped minimum wage by July 2028 and require Chicago employers to give their employees a minimum of 10 days of paid time off every year.

But that effort suffered a serious setback in November 2023, when Ramirez-Rosa was forced to resign as floor leader and Zoning Committee chair after he physically blocked Ald. Emma Mitts (37th Ward) from entering the City Council chambers during a special meeting called to consider whether to ask voters to weigh in on whether Chicago should remain a sanctuary city.

Ramirez-Rosa apologized to Mitts and four other City Council members who said he threatened to prevent measures they favor from being called for a vote in the Zoning Committee if they didn’t leave the special City Council meeting.

As Johnson’s floor leader, Ramirez-Rosa was responsible for shepherding the mayor’s policies and initiatives through the City Council. As Zoning Committee chair, a position from which he also resigned, Ramirez-Rosa wielded significant influence over what would get built throughout the city, and not just in his Northwest Side ward.

An effort to censure Ramirez-Rosa ended in a tied vote of the City Council, leading Johnson to break the tie in his ally’s favor.

After that conflagration, Ramirez-Rosa receded from the City Hall spotlight, but said Friday he was proud of his accomplishments in 2024, including the passage of new rules designed to prevent the displacement of longtime residents by preserving affordable housing in parts of Hermosa, Logan Square, Avondale, West Town and Humboldt Park, the culmination of a yearslong fight against gentrification.

Ramirez-Rosa acknowledged that his decision to step down from the City Council will usher in a new era for the progressive wing of Chicago’s Democratic Party, which helped elect not only Johnson but also U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez and state Sen. Graciela Guzman.

“Movements do best when there is forward movement and change,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “Change and transition is a good thing.”

It will be up to Johnson to select an interim alderperson to represent the 35th Ward and complete Ramirez-Rosa’s term in office, which ends in 2027.

Johnson promised to “outline a community-led process to identify and appoint a qualified candidate” that centers “the community’s voice in his decision. “

The leading candidate to replace Ramirez-Rosa is Cook County Commissioner Anthony Quezada, who was elected in 2022 to represent the 8th District on the Cook County Board. Quezada, who is also a member of the Democratic Socialists, was also elected to serve as the 35th Ward’s Democratic Committeeperson and worked as an aide to Ramirez-Rosa in the 35th Ward office for six and a half years.

Quezada could not immediately be reached for comment by WTTW News.