From Harold's ‘Refrigerettes’ cheer to the parking meter deal, new recordings reveal iconic Council moments

Forty years ago, the Bears were marching toward their only Super Bowl championship after shutting out the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship game at Soldier Field. Then-Mayor Harold Washington invited to the Jan. 16, 1986 City Council meeting the "Refrigerettes," a cheerleading squad celebrating famed Bear defensive lineman/occasional running back William "The Refrigerator" Perry, and joined them in a rousing cheer for the beloved Bears.

“I would like to ask our delicious, delightful, beloved Refrigerettes to lead us in a Bear cheer," Washington told the City Council. “I’m gonna start, but they’re gonna lead... “We’re Number One! We’re Number One! We’re Number One, One, One!”

On Wednesday, City Clerk Anna Valencia played a recording of that joyous moment to help launch a new web page that will help Chicagoans explore the rich history of their city government.

The web page features more than 800 newly digitized audio clips recorded between 1970 and 2012. The page includes captions, indexes to legislation and City Council journals and links to related historical archives.

The recording that showcased Washington’s joie de vivre was played Wednesday before a live audience at Muse Coffee Studio, 747 S. Western.

Joining Valencia in a panel discussion of Chicago history were former lakefront Ald. Helen Shiller (46th), one of Washington’s closest City Council allies, former Chicago Board of Education President-turned-radio talk show host Rufus Williams, and Dario Durham of the 77 Flavors of Chicago podcast.

“What you get through the sound bite is his joy and his humor and his spirit. And all of that, he applied to his city that he loved,” Shiller said.

“He also had a huge amount of opposition… He was a challenge to the powers that be and they weren’t about to let that go. But this particular moment in history was significant because this was just a month before” the special election in a handful of wards that gave Washington control over the City Council, ending the infamous power struggle known as “Council Wars.”

Williams said the cheerleading clip proved that Washington was "larger than life... And he was fun" at a time when "there was no better place to be" than Chicago.

“You had Jim McMahon who kept pissing off the commissioner because he didn’t want him to wear headbands. So Jim wore headbands with his name on it. You had the Refrigerator, bigger than life in every way imaginable, who then became an offensive player, and the Refrigerettes, who— you can’t see them from the audio — but they were full-sized women and they were fun.”

“Even now 40 years later, we look back and… there has not been a better football team than the 1985 Bears," Williams added. "To a person, they were characters."

Another recording featured former Ald. Leon Despres (5th) demanding in 1973 that the Council journal include the resounding defeat of three resolutions that he said “would have lifted the veil of secrecy over police records of use of excessive force and killing people.”

“Had we not had this audio recording clip, we wouldn’t have known… that there are actually things missing from the journal that was on the record,” Valencia said.

The recording reminded Williams of the importance of police body cameras. “Finally, there’s a way to see differently than what we’re told. And it wasn’t until Laquan McDonald that we really started here to see… the things that people have talked about,” Williams said. “So many different stories came out. This gives a sense that somebody was really listening.”

Shiller said complaints about police brutality were growing in the 1970s, culminating in creation of the Office of Professional Standards to investigate allegations of police wrongdoing.

One of the first things Washington did was take OPS out of the Police Department and replace it with an independent office, Shiller said.

“He was very frustrated that he had very little ability to control what was happening in the Police Department,” Shiller said.

An audio archive of recent Chicago history would not be complete without a recording of the City Council debate that preceded the 2008 deal to privatize Chicago parking meters. Then Ald. Billy Ocasio (26th) cast one of only five “no” votes on that day, after bringing a piggy bank to the debate as a prop.

“This is the sound of parents taking money out of a kids’ piggy bank. Not having anything in the piggy bank. That’s what we’re talking about here today,” Ocasio said.

Williams recalled that Chicagoans who once paid 25 cents an hour to feed the meters are now paying $6.50 an hour.

“To think we couldn’t have done that on our own — and the money was gone in 18 months," Williams said. "All of that money could have gone to us.”