Still in the dark about Lori Lightfoot’s City Council leadership team, aldermen will learn Tuesday how Chicago’s mayor-elect plans to deliver on her signature campaign promise.

Lightfoot has scheduled a series of aldermanic briefings at her transition office to outline her plan to issue an executive order on May 20 — inauguration day — ending aldermanic prerogative, the unwritten rule that has given aldermen virtually iron-fisted control over zoning and permitting in their wards.

That tradition is at the heart of the attempted extortion charge against former Finance Committee Chairman Edward Burke (14th) and nearly every other aldermanic corruption case over the years.

But if Lightfoot pushes too hard, she could have a fight on her hands with the same aldermen whose support she needs to approve a budget that’s almost certain to include painful cuts and tax increases to satisfy a $277 million spike in pension payments and a budget shortfall more “dire” than she anticipated.

Aldermen are reluctant to relinquish any more control at a time when their powers have already been greatly diminished by trash pickup now done on a grid system, instead of ward-by-ward, and by an interactive 311 system that eliminates the middleman.

Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd), one of two leading candidates for Finance Committee chairman, said an executive order would likely suffice to end aldermanic signoff on “executive tasks” such as permits for driveways, alley access, signs and block parties that the Departments of Buildings and Transportation are supposed to handle.

As for aldermanic prerogative from being used to block things like affordable housing, Waguespack argued that likely would take yet another re-write of the city’s zoning code to end that practice.

“I don’t think they’re gonna scale back aldermanic prerogative on zoning. There’s nothing written that says one way or another that it exists. And a lot of community groups like to have prerogative still in place. It’s helpful in many ways,” Waguespack said Monday.

“But, if it’s a driveway permit, a decision by CDOT or plans [for a project], they might look at it and say an alderman can’t veto it.”

Transportation Committee Chairman Anthony Beale (9th) has cautioned the mayor-elect that, if she messes with aldermanic prerogative, there could be political consequences.

“These commissioners have to be confirmed. And if I hear a commissioner saying they’re not gonna listen to the aldermen, then they’re not gonna get my vote for confirmation,” Beale told the Sun-Times on Friday.

Beale said if he has a “bad business owner” in his Far South Side ward who’s selling “illegal substances, bad meat or cigarettes to minors,” he has an obligation to “get that business out of my ward.”

“If it takes holding up a permit to get that person out of my ward that’s creating havoc on my community, I don’t want somebody from downtown taking that right from me because the people in my community have elected me to represent the best interests of my community,” he said.

“You want to take that ability away from me to help protect my community? I don’t think so.”

Lightfoot spokesperson Anel Ruiz said Tuesday’s briefings–scheduled for 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m. at 325 N. LaSalle–is to “begin a dialogue” about how the Lightfoot administration will “address these and other important issues on behalf of every neighborhood, starting day one.”

In an email, Ruiz noted that Lightfoot “respects the work that each alderman does on behalf of their wards” and that, what she is proposing “will not take away” from their “important work…for their constituents.”

“They will still have notice and an opportunity to advocate on matters” in their wards, Ruiz wrote.

“We are seeking to kick off a needed conversation about the unchecked veto authority in place today that has too often bred corruption and impeded progress in our neighborhoods.”

The Ruiz statement echoed the more flexible, less dogmatic tone that Lightfoot set during an interview with WLS-AM Radio last month.

She argued then that there were “lots of different things that aldermen are tasked with responsibility for that really ought to be something that’s done through the executive branch.”

“What I’m talking about is eliminating the unilateral veto right,” she said then.

“What I don’t want is, where there should be a citywide proposal, that we have 50 different fiefdoms carving up an issue…. It doesn’t work. And we know, given the sad history, it’s a breeding ground for corruption.”