Breaking news
From the Tribune:
Nine men and women, including three employees of the already scandal-plagued Chicago city water department, were arrested Wednesday as federal officials rolled up what they described as the Chicago branch of a Colombian heroin-trafficking operation.
Eight individuals were arrested Wednesday morning in Chicago and one in New York on charges involving an alleged conspiracy to distribute sizable quantities of heroin on city streets.
Something has got to give at city hall. And soon.
And, just to add another thought here... Chicagoans will forgive a lot. The corruption is just part of life. But heroin dealing at the water department? Never.
If this is true, then it's the worst thing yet to hit Daley. No matter how insulated he is from it in reality, no matter what the actual facts are, if those guys were selling H on the job, then Daley is in serious, serious trouble.
posted by Rich Miller @ 6/08/2005 02:37:00 PM
24 comments
24 Comments...
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Lots of good Briatta stuff.
Good stuff in the 11th ward.
Generations of good government.
Quick Rich! Get on the horn! The City Council did some mighty strange things today in relation to some mayoral initiatives. Worth of a FAX special.
The City of Chicago employs over
30,000 people and is top-heavy with management employees, a substantial percentage of whom do not work very hard and do not understand what their subordinates are supposed to be doing. Most of them got their jobs through some form of patronage. Usually, the results are not as dramatic as your employees running a cocaine ring, so the public doesn't hear about them, but if the city departments were being managed properly, the managers should have known about this and stopped it. And what else are they missing? Or choosing not to see?
And while we are talking about the city, why fire Rice but leave Kaderbeck, Kruesi and Duncan in place. Kaderbeck's department has made several serious errors, the most recent resulting in the tragic death of a child on the South Side. Kruesi clearly cannot manage at all. And no matter how much money you throw at the Chicago schools, Duncan always says it's not enough.
Is there such a thing as receivership for a city. Perhaps that's what we need here...Ron Huberman's cleanup appointment is too little, too late.
Hey I heard Daley is also responsible for the side effects of the recently removed prescription drugs, vioxx and celebrex! Get off the poor guy, he is the Mayor and he has thousands of people working for him, it is hard to stop someone from doing something wrong. Let's admit it under both Republicans and Democrats, stuff happpens, but I bet nobody wants Jackson or Washington or Byrne or Bilandic as Mayor.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Stop calling them a city council.
They are crooks and thiefs.
Mr. Miller:
NOT FOR POSTING: SIMPLY A QUERY TO YOU: 509 Anonymous sounds like a whack job to me ... have you checked out who he/she might be? His/her postings might bear reviewing and deletion. I'd expect to read them on the IL Leader but not here.
Thanks/Evanston reader
"Can I tell you something?" Daley said when he was asked if the dismissal [of Water Department Commissioner Rice] was fair. "Everybody has responsibility. I put somebody on the dance floor, they have to dance. I have to make the judgments, and I will make the judgments."
The Mayor is going to rue the day he said that about Rice. All of the scandals in all the various departments have one common theme, Daley was the Mayor and therefore was ultimately responsible for what happened. By the Mayor's own standard, ignorance or lack of knowledge of the problems are no excuse.
Some reporter should ask the Mayor if this same unyielding standard applies to himself, or just to his expendible subordinates.
Well if it is "some guys who work at water did drugs on their off time" than I don't see Daley having a problem.
If "some guys at water blew off work to sell drugs, that' a bigger problem."
If "some guys at work used city property & time for their drug biz" that is a HUGE problem.
The latter two lead to "you aren't managing the city very well" if employees can do such things.
What you see:
City & state employees being fired in response to public scandal.
What you won't see:
City & state employees being fired PRIOR to a scandal becoming public.
The Feds and the press and the only thing keeping the corruption in check. God knows the bureaucracy is not.
The interesting thing is the coordination here -- Daley's top aides met w/ US Atty's office just a few days before the Water Department firings. A few days later, there's a federal drug case announced in the same dept. No US Atty gives that type of heads-up unless they are impressed with the cooperation.
Could the Mayor have cleaned it up earlier? Sure. Is he making progress? Looks like it. Has he convinced the most important person in the state (Fitzgerald)? Looks like it.
To Pat Collins, et al., everybody deserves a break, but:
"But investigators did find that department workers 'were engaging in this kind of conduct during weekdays, during workdays, when they should not have been,' U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said at a news conference."
Miller is right. Taxpayer/voters expect ghost payrolling. They expect city workers to be knocking on doors for some candidate when they are on the clock. They do not expect them to be helping to supply the neighborhood school children with cocaine and heroin.
People aren't going to call Daley a heroin dealer. They aren't going to say he embraces drug dealers. Someone will put together a campaign ad that slaps up headlines next to pictures of Daley's face and talks about "the culture of corruption."
And you can bet, no matter how tenuous the connection, someone will connect these drug dealers to someone in the mayor's inner circle. This story is just getting started.
And the anonymous posters are right. Given a choice between taking a step back and staying where we are, voters are going to stick with Daley. But there are plenty of millionaire Democrats in this town that could finance their own campaign as a reformer.
I'm not writing his eulogy yet, but I think the Mayor is finally out of second chances.
The certifiably insane poster "anonymous at 6/8/05 5:09 pm's" comments have been flushed down the proverbial toilet. Rich, that dude needs some serious meds in a really bad way!!
What makes our anonymous poster insane? The notion that government officials, real estate moguls, and The Outfit are in cahoots? The thought that folks might be tailing him because he knows this and talks too much? Just because we can't verify what he's saying?
For all I know, Deep Throat is the only one around here who really knows what's going on.
I say leave his posts, and:
"Follow the money to the Laundromat."
Has anyone realized that one of the men charged is an HDO member?...hmmmm looks like Victor and his crew has been busy, huh?
In re yellow dog democrat's comment
"They [the public] do not expect them [city of Chicago employees] to be helping to supply the neighborhood school children with cocaine and heroin."
That would be more like "They do not expect them to be helping supply the suburban school children with cocaine and heroin." Drug use among suburban kids is higher than among city kids. And, yes, they usually drive into the city to get it.
Oops! hit send too soon. In addition to my comment about suburban kids, I want to add that, as a city dweller, I have long been fed up with the corruption or plain lazyiness in city government. Ineffective management seems to run from city hall on down to >all< the departments, including my local police.
One example: not sure if it's b/c they farm out so much to private contractors (who really cut corners) or budget cuts or what, but for the past 10 years the new infrastructures they've been replacing seem so shoddy. It's really penny wise and pund foolish (I mean streets, sewer work, sidewalks, etc.)
How about all the "beautification" of the neighborhoods ala Irving Park Rd. and Ashalnd, Cermak, etc. with new medians full of plants and trees while our the gangs still control our streets????
The CTA. (need I say more?)
I think a lot of my neighbors are starting to view Daley is a total joke. He's been doging bullets on an almost daily basis lately. His lack of leadership is running this city into the ground! The mayor's seat is ripe for the picking, IMO, and I pray someone with integrity and enough popularity to win will challenge him and clean house!
How about Ron Gidwitz for mayor.
No way he can make it for governor but this might be the right time for a (as far as I know) ethically ok businessperson candidate to take a run at the mayor job.
If it's either Jackson or Gutierrez there will be a major
bloodbath as two highly politically powerful city ethnic groups duke it out for all the jobs and spoils. While this is all going on, the city schools and other services will deteriorate further.
Actually, above also sounds like a
reason to keep Daley, except I don't know how much longer he can
talk away these scandals.
In case you didn't notice, 11:41, Gidwitz is a Republican. My grandkid will be elected Mayor before Chicago elects a Republican businessman.
And 9:44, your point is well taken, but many parents have this weird paranoia -- we think that whatever has happened to any child anywhere in America could happen to our kid. I think its genetically programmed parenting instinct.
That's why parents react so strongly to news of a nine year-old falling of a balcony or tales of violent video games falling into the hands of juveniles.
By the way, the city was at fault, as was the landlord, but did anybody ask why a nine year-old was playing unsupervised on a third story balcony?
I saw daley seling pot on the corner of 35th and Halsted...
Seriously -- anyone, ANYONE who believes Daley would tolerate selling junk on the city's dime has never paid attention to the man.
Does it come at a bad time? sure. Can one pin this one one Daley with even the slightest strain of credibility or seriousness? Not a chance.
Happenstance, and nothing more.
To better than it looks, who said:
The interesting thing is the coordination here -- Daley's top aides met w/ US Atty's office just a few days before the Water Department firings.
If you are going by the Sneed item, which doesn't disclose what was discussed in the meeting between Fitz and the aides, there are a lot of other things that could have been discussed that don't mean Daley is helping bust his own employees for heroin sales -- like setting up this project safe neighborhoods press conference with fitz and daley together that was held the same day that sneed's item about their meeting ran.
To BuckTurgidson,
"Seriously -- anyone, ANYONE who believes Daley would tolerate selling junk on the city's dime has never paid attention to the man."
People don't have to believe that Daley is tolerating selling junk on the city's dime for this to hurt him. They could also posit from this that Daley is such an inept manager that these things are running wild right under his nose and there is so much corruption going on (beyond what Chicago is used to) that Daley can't even control it anymore.
If it comes out that city employees were selling heroin while they were being paid by the city I think this has the potential to end up like the situation with ex-Gov. Ryan.
Illinois voters are bombarded with so much information about abuses of taxpayer dollars and bribes and campaign contributions for favors that it takes something extra for the stuff to stick and ruin the politician.
It takes corruption so rampant and oversight so sorely lacking that truly horrifying things happen, like kids dying. And maybe a heroin ring operated by city managers.
This is another level.
if Harold Washington was Mayor...they would be calling for his resignation by now
Did anyone else notice that this morning's Sun Times carried an utterly incoherent anecdote about one of the water dept guys going to a woman's house in Bridgeport and offering to buy it.
The Trib carried the same anecdote, except they brought it home with the fact that Oscar d'Angelo had been trying to buy the house. The water dept heroin dealer is apparently a d'Angelo operative as well. Very nice!!
And my question: who edited the Sun Times story to keep that wunnerful man and friend of the Little Italians, Oscar D, out of the story?
“Follow the money to the Laundromat."
“The Laundromat holds many more answers than you can imagine along with a list of who are involved. There are others, however for us this should be the focus. Again, this is known this simply because I was in a family for more than 26 years where they are one of an army of money launders for the Laundromat. Look there and you’ll find “Daley’s” name!”
There are many other things I can talk about, but that’s for another time….
Deep Throat II
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