A General Iron recycling plant employee works with incoming trucks loaded with metal on Feb,. 5, 2020, in the Lincoln Yards area. (Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune)

As a chronic polluter sought city permission to set up shop on Chicago’s Southeast Side, recently released emails show there was a stark divide in the administration of Mayor Lori Lightfoot — one the mayor wanted to keep secret from the public.

The fall 2020 emails, released to the Tribune under an open records request, offer a window into the extent to which Lightfoot hoped to stop the public from learning details of the behind-the-scenes debate over General Iron’s attempted move from a wealthy, largely white Lincoln Park neighborhood to a lower-income, predominantly Latino one on the Southeast Side.

Despite campaigning on a promise to “bring in the light” at City Hall, Lightfoot admonished staffers for sending her emails that could later be made public, if somebody happened to request them under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, commonly known by its acronym FOIA.

The mayor scolded her top environmental adviser for sending her a memo on General Iron, saying the aide’s written recommendations have “no FOIA protections and that just cannot be a thing.”

“I have asked now several times for there to be no more correspondence and writings that are not protected by (privilege),” Lightfoot wrote in the November 2020 email to Angela Tovar, her administration’s chief sustainability officer.

“I am happy to engage in the conversation, but it must be done in a way that does not expose this administration to risk,” Lightfoot added.

Under state law, government officials must release public records to anyone requesting them, though there are numerous provisions in the Freedom of Information Act that allow government bodies to make redactions.

In her email to Lightfoot and other high-ranking aides, Tovar wrote, “It is my understanding that you have had the opportunity to hear from (the city’s Law Department) directly, and I want to (give) you another perspective.”

Lightfoot officials redacted most of Tovar’s email and are withholding much of the memo she wrote, despite Lightfoot’s admonishment that it has no “protections” from the state’s open records act. The mayor’s office said the memo contains strategic recommendations.

Lightfoot’s staff said the city will make a decision on allowing a permit for General Iron after a community meeting on Feb. 15.

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The emails came to light as part of the Tribune’s yearslong push to get Lightfoot’s administration to release certain emails and texts, which her administration has at times refused to do, until the state attorney general has determined that her office violated state open records law. That included trying to keep secret an email about an alleged bet over the length of the 2019 teachers strike and 2 ½ years of texts involving city business in which Lightfoot called officials names ranging from “jackass” to “dumb, dumb person of color.”

The latest release of emails underscores the controversy roiling City Hall over General Iron, which is attempting to move from Lincoln Park to Chicago’s East Side neighborhood abutting the Indiana state line. The correspondence also highlights the ways Lightfoot has failed to fulfill her campaign promise to “bring in the light” at City Hall.

General Iron’s move has drawn staunch opposition from community activists and federal housing officials, who in 2020 opened an investigation into why the city is allowing the company’s move. Activists note the U.S. Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency cracked down on General Iron three times between 1999 and 2018, later brokering legal settlements for emitting illegal amounts of pollution and handling scrap unsafely.

Houses sit under the Chicago Skyway toll road on South Avenue M on March 9, 2021, in the East Side neighborhood of Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Minutes after scolding Tovar, Lightfoot sent an email to a group of policy officials and her chief of staff, ordering them to “stop the childish fighting” and get “on the same page.” She told staffers she was an “independent thinker” as a longtime lawyer and also understood “a thing or two about politics.”

She ended with a demand that they not correspond in ways that the city could later be forced to reveal to the public.

“Stop sending around memos and emails about pending litigation that is not protected by privilege,” Lightfoot said. “If you want to talk to me, pick up the phone.”

Lightfoot’s response to Tovar isn’t the first time she’s criticized staff for sending her information.

In January 2021, Lightfoot’s then-chief of staff Maurice Classen forwarded her a “Labor Relations/Staff Update” from Chicago Public Schools. Lightfoot responded, “Folks, I meant what I said yesterday. Stop, immediately, forwarding me these long email chains to me. Stop it now.”

Classen apologized, saying he thought he had “chopped” up the email but “unfortunately” forwarded more than he intended.

“And to be clear, I did not read any of this and I will not read it,” Lightfoot wrote back.

The unredacted portions of Tovar’s memo detail conflict between General Iron and community leaders. Tovar’s memo notes that activists filed a complaint with HUD alleging that the city violated the Fair Housing Act “based on its history of moving industrial uses to low-income communities of color, as exemplified in the September 2019 agreement between the City and General Iron to enable the relocation of its business and operations from the well-off Northside to the Southeast Side environmental justice community.”

Residents allege that the city approved a plan to move General Iron’s operations to an ”already-overburdened environmental justice community,” according to the memo. General Iron has a history of violations, the complainants alleged, according to the memo.

HUD is investigating while encouraging the city to reach an agreement during a voluntary mediation. Federal officials asked the city to refrain from issuing a final permit while they were in conciliation discussions.

Lightfoot’s office redacted Tovar’s recommendation as well as a section titled “next steps.”

The proposed move of General Iron came after the Labkon family sold its company to Ohio-based Reserve Management Group in 2019. At least one family member, Adam Labkon, owns part of the new enterprise.

RMG contends its new facility on the Southeast Side would be the nation’s cleanest scrap shredder. Connected to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, it would give RMG the ability to cost-effectively ship scrap by barge to steel mills across the eastern part of the United States.

But activists on the Southeast Side contend RMG’s statements sound disturbingly similar to promises General Iron made over the years.

This story has been updated to correct that an email from then-chief of staff Maurice Classen to Mayor Lightfoot was sent in January 2021, not 2020 as originally stated.