Mayor Brandon Johnson made a show of videotaping the City Hall gift room after being accused of accepting valuable gifts, failing to report them and denying the city’s inspector general access to the room where those items were stored.
But there was a problem.
The gift room showcased in the mayor’s 21-second video was not constructed until February, the month after Inspector General Deborah Witzburg tried to conduct an unannounced inspection — only to be turned away by the mayor’s office.
In an advisory released Tuesday, Witzburg accused Johnson of failing to live up to his commitment to transparency.
“My fear is that what we are seeing here is less about the cuff links and the Size 14 men’s shoes and it’s more about hostility to oversight. There is a reflexive hostility to oversight,” Witzburg told the Sun-Times.
The mayor’s press secretary, Cassio Mendoza, disagreed, maintaining that Johnson’s decision to create a formal gift room to house items that had been stored by previous mayors in a “disorganized” way demonstrated his commitment to oversight.
“There was the logbook and spaces to hold all of the inventory. But it was disorganized. So we organized it and put it in a place where the public could access it,” Mendoza said. “It’s much more transparent to have a room where anyone can go in at any time. Any reporter can walk in and take a look at every single thing. Or you can just look online and see every single thing and see a video of what’s in there. We even created a link now where you can request a donation of something that’s in the gift room if you want it.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson speaks about the actions of ICE officers in Chicago during a recent press conference in Garfield Park. City IG Deborah Witzburg has accused Johnson on not being transparent about the gift room his administration created to house gifts he received on the city’s behalf.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
So far, only two people have signed up to tour the gift room, and neither showed up for the tour, Mendoza said.
“I don’t think this is a serious concern for Chicagoans. But the process that we put in place was much more transparent than what was there before,” Mendoza said.
Witzburg said the explanation now offered by the mayor’s office doesn’t make sense. Johnson’s 21-second video pans a room full of items, most of which look like they belong in someone’s closet or basement storage space.
“OIG has legal authority to inspect city premises. Whatever state the mayor’s gifts were in when we went to conduct that unannounced inspection, the mayor’s office took great lengths to prevent that state of gifts from being seen publicly,” she said.
Witzburg’s advisory contains a second allegation that, she argued, underscores what she called Johnson’s “hostility to oversight.” In July, her investigators tried to inspect a second “city office to search for prohibited items” they had reason to believe were being stored in violation of city policy.
But a Law Department attorney “instructed a city employee using that office” to deny access to Witzburg’s internal investigators.
The Law Department subsequently provided “video evidence of the prohibited items.” A few weeks later, Witzburg’s investigators made an appointment to inspect the office in the presence of a city attorney.
They found the prohibited items they were looking for, Witzburg said. She refused to identify the city official who was using that office or the items being stored because it’s the subject of an ongoing investigation.
“What we are never going to know is exactly what evidence we would have found if we had been permitted to conduct that original unannounced inspection,” Witzburg said.
The inspector general said there is a reason why her advisory mentions both incidents in tandem.
“If we can’t trust them on the small things, it’s hard to ask people to trust City Hall on the big things,” she said.
Witzburg has been at loggerheads with the mayor’s office on a host of investigative issues.
The most recent example occurred last month, when the inspector general disclosed that she had recommended that Johnson fire his closest aide, senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee, for refusing to cooperate with her investigation of an alleged quid pro quo threat he made to a City Council member. The mayor refused to abide by that request.
In July, Witzburg announced she would not seek another term as inspector general.