Mayor Brandon Johnson’s chief of staff Richard Guidice is resigning at the end of the month, the mayor’s office announced Thursday in its biggest personnel shakeup yet.
Johnson’s deputy chief of staff, progressive former state Sen. Cristina Pacione-Zayas, will take over the top post after Guidice leaves, according to a source close to the administration.
Guidice’s departure on April 1 will come less than a year after the longtime City Hall veteran was tapped by Johnson, then mayor-elect, to help steer the fledgling progressive administration. The news was first broken by Politico Illinois.
“For more than three decades, Rich Guidice has admirably served the city of Chicago, earning tremendous respect under four mayors and across multiple city departments,” Johnson wrote in a Thursday statement. “To come out of retirement to serve in my administration is a testament to his belief in our work and our vision for the city of Chicago, and for that, I am grateful. Our administration is better because of the time he spent as my chief of staff.”
Guidice’s resignation comes as the mayor’s rift with more moderate politicians and the city’s business community has widened since Johnson assumed office last May. Some progressive mayoral allies heralded the pending departure of the most centrist figure in Johnson’s inner circle, however.
Guidice began in city government working in former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration and most recently led the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. At the time of his appointment, many traditional political and business leaders felt that experience would help steer the new administration and smooth concerns over whether Johnson’s nontraditional roots as a labor organizer would lead to radical changes in how City Hall was run.
While picking Guidice as chief of staff allowed a semblance of Chicago politics’ old guard remaining in government, Pacione-Zayas’ presence showed the progressive movement would also have a strong champion on staff.
During Guidice’s tenure, he served as a rare longtime bureaucrat with public safety experience among a team of mostly progressive union leaders and advocates. But there’s been repeated points of instability since that time, including the recent confusion over the city’s cancellation of its contract with the ShotSpotter gunfire technology company and ongoing controversy over the migrant crisis.
Just this week, the mayor’s signature campaign pledge to raise the real estate transfer tax to fund homeless services appeared poised to fail in the March primary election, a setback for the progressive movement that a defiant Johnson on Wednesday blamed on a real estate industry he described as “cowardly.”
Now, those business interests will believe they see an even less friendly mayor’s office without Guidice — and ahead of the Democratic National Convention arriving in Chicago this summer. The sure-to-be rowdy event would have been in Guidice’s wheelhouse to help administer as the former OEMC chief.
“Those are all big events, and certainly the city is looking forward to those,” Guidice had told the Tribune when asked about the DNC and Lollapalooza last April. “We’re looking forward to shining the spotlight once again on the city of Chicago and in a positive manner. So we’re certainly up for those opportunities.”
Guidice often took a more behind-the-scenes role compared to Pacione-Zayas and other top aides such as senior adviser Jason Lee, both of whom have often spoken with the press and interacted with aldermen directly.
As the second deputy, Pacione-Zayas has been most involved with handling the city’s response to the 37,000 asylum-seekers who have arrived in Chicago since 2022, often being on the forefront of defending Johnson’s most controversial decisions to City Council and reporters. She rose up with the Northwest Side progressive apparatus before joining the Johnson administration.
Guidice’s retirement from city government will be his second within the year. He announced his departure from OEMC shortly after the April 4 election but opted to come back to join the Johnson administration.