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What is the Council of Mayors?

Northeastern Illinois includes 11 subregional bodies called Councils of Mayors (COMs) that represent suburban municipalities. There are six in suburban Cook County and five in the collar counties. Each council appoints two members to serve on the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s (CMAP) Council of Mayors Executive Committee.

The individual councils establish their own meeting schedules, organization and structure. In many parts of the region Council of Mayors boundaries coincide with municipal Conference or Council of Government (COG) boundaries. Three of the COMs are housed within and staffed by the county division of transportation.

The Council of Mayors Executive Committee provides a forum for cooperative regional discussion between the individual councils. Federal, state, and regional transportation and planning agencies report to the local governments through the committee and get local input on their work.

Each Council of Mayors, plus the City of Chicago, is responsible for selecting projects to be funded through the local Surface Transportation Program (STP). The councils and Chicago select local projects according to their own STP methodology, with guidance and oversight by CMAP. Local projects must meet all federal eligibility requirements, including being located on a federal-aid eligible route, and must consider planning factors established by the region.

Every Council of Mayors has a least one staff person designated as a planning liaison. Planning liaisons are the primary link between CMAP and the suburban mayors and are directly responsible for the programming of locally sponsored, federally funded projects in the CMAP Transportation Improvement Program. The planning liaison program is funded through CMAP’s Unified Work Program.