A Department of Streets and Sanitation truck driver who brought a firearm into a city building and left it in a bathroom;
A construction laborer with an expired firearm owners identification card and no concealed carry license found with an “illegal firearm” in their personal vehicle;
A Chicago police lieutenant with an “unlawful interest” in a company awarded an O’Hare Airport construction contract
Those are the highlights of city Inspector General Deborah Witzburg’s latest quarterly report detailing her ongoing efforts to clean up city government and root out waste, abuse and fraud.
As always, names of accused offenders are withheld. But the report includes a synopsis of cases that underscores Witzburg’s uphill battle to as she put it, “pay down” Chicago’s “deficit of legitimacy.”
“Over many decades, City government in Chicago has earned its reputation as broken and corrupt, and has given Chicagoans no reason to afford the benefit of any doubt to decisions made in dark corners of City Hall,” Witzburg wrote in the report. “We are holding people accountable when they abuse positions of public trust, and we are shining a light into those dark corners.”
Witzburg said she identified and effected the return of more than $50,000 in improper campaign contributions to city officials “because we cannot have a For Sale sign hanging on the door to City Hall.”
She is also working closely with the Department of Human Resources to make certain that all city jobs — including the “highest-ranking” positions — have job descriptions that include “minimum qualifications.”
That’s required by the city’s employment plan to ensure that “taxpayer dollars are going to people qualified and equipped to work and succeed in positions of public trust.”
The truck driver accused of leaving the gun in the bathroom of a city building retired during the the investigation. The Water Management construction laborer who had an illegal firearm in a personal vehicle was recommended for discharge but got off with a written reprimand.
Other highlights include:
- A “Women’s Business Enterprise” working as a certified materials supplier on the O’Hare expansion project is accused of having “failed to provide a commercially useful function at the direction of a “first-tier subcontractor” on the project. Witzburg recommended debarment for the companies involved. Instead, the Department of Procurement Services chose to “educate” both companies on the city’s set-side rules and “discount the claimed WBE credit.”
- A supervisor for the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection is accused of having “verbally abused and harassed” employees at a business holding multiple city licenses after being “denied entry to the business because they were intoxicated.” Witzburg recommended discharge and that the supervisor be placed on the Do Not Rehire list. Termination proceedings are pending.
- An elected state official is accused of having “impermissibly lobbied” city officials in an effort to obtain “desired legislative outcomes on behalf of their clients.” Witzburg recommended that the Chicago Board of Ethics find probable cause for violating the city’s ethics ordinance, the first step toward imposing sanctions. A probable cause finding has been issued. The state official was not named in the report.
Witzburg’s report also mentioned her efforts to convince Johnson to stop withholding documents, selectively enforcing subpoenas and demanding to have the Law Department sit in on interviews that “risk embarrassment” to the fifth floor of City Hall.
Witzburg has been at loggerheads with the Johnson administration over a proposed ordinance to remove those impediments to internal investigations. Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry has argued those stalled rules would “dismantle guardrails so that the person charged with looking at fraud, waste and abuse would become an abuser.”
“We are…working to protect OIG’s independence and ensure the long-term stability and viability of effective oversight in Chicago,” Witzburg wrote. “We have proposed changes to the Municipal Code of Chicago to prevent interference with OIG’s work and safeguard its independence. Those proposed changes are pending before Chicago’s City Council, and I hope to see action taken on them soon.”