Corruption in Chicago.
So the Chicago Sun-Times printed an article about corruption in the city's Hired Truck Program. The article is pretty good. It sounded to me like the Sun-Times did some good investigative work, and they put together a very informative article.
Here's the thing that sticks out in my head, though: while they use the thread-bare word "scandal" in the title, the tone of the article suggests that this corruption, which sucks $40 million of taxpayer money out of the Mayor's budget every year, isn't really scandalous, or even surprising.
Chicago does have a reputation to live up to, after all.
And Chicagoans know it. We know that the mobsters run everything, that Mayor Daley is about as crooked as they come (just slicker about hiding it than certain others--see Ed Vrdolyak, below), and that bribes and despotism have driven Chicago's political machine for...well, at least since Capone's day, if not much, much longer.
So I started reading the article, and once it started talking about crooked business deals, I immediately thought, "Hmm, where's Ed Vrdolyak in all this?" (It's pronounced "ver-DOH-lee-ack.") Call it cynicism if the first thing I do is to start plugging the usual suspects into some new breaking scandal.
The answer, of course, is "in prison," after he got busted for ripping off all kinds of money from the suburb of Cicero (Al Capone's old stomping grounds, by the way). Talk about a mobbed-up town, Cicero is it. More recently, it was the home of mobster Frank Maltese, and after he died, his widow became the Mayor. Two years ago, Betty Loren-Maltese and Ed Vrdolyak got caught skimming millions of dollars' worth of town employee insurance money in a fraud scam. After that scandal broke, the local papers stopped calling him "the former alderman" and started calling him "Cicero mob boss."
And this is the guy who ran against Richard Daley for mayor, back in the election that was eventually won by Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor. Back then, Fast Eddie was an alderman, and he seemed to make it his job to make Mayor Washington's life miserable. Until, that is, Washington leaned over the table at a City Council meeting, balled up a fist, and offered to give Fast Eddie a "mouthful of something he didn't want."
I'm not sure if that made Harold Washington a hero or a political embarrassment, but it showed that he had cojones.
I digress. So I'm wondering if Fast Eddie is involved. But I guess he couldn't be. Not if he's in jail now, right?
Page two: "There's the mobster whose firm got in after he was convicted for ripping off the Town of Cicero, but before he was sent to prison for 6 1/2 years." Bulls-eye. It amuses me that the Sun-Times doesn't actually name him, that that spend a whole page on Arnold Anzaldua, and only a single sentence on Vrdolyak. I wonder if they're doing Fast Eddie a favor here by not spelling out his previous scams once again, or if they just know that one sentence is really all Chicagoans need to put the story together.
Later in the article, it talks about the Teamsters, unsatisfied with Daley's administration, taking their complaints to Governor Blagojevich. ("Blah-GOY-a-vitch." Live in Chicagoland long enough, and you'll get used to the names.) However, Blagojevich is one of Daley's boys (remember what I said about Chicago politics and despotism), so I don't really expect the Teamsters to be satisfied by going that route, either.
I suppose there are some places where organized crime has to be sneaky, but in Chicago, they only have to avoid being blatant. And trust me, there are miles of gray area between those two terms.
Here's the thing that sticks out in my head, though: while they use the thread-bare word "scandal" in the title, the tone of the article suggests that this corruption, which sucks $40 million of taxpayer money out of the Mayor's budget every year, isn't really scandalous, or even surprising.
Chicago does have a reputation to live up to, after all.
And Chicagoans know it. We know that the mobsters run everything, that Mayor Daley is about as crooked as they come (just slicker about hiding it than certain others--see Ed Vrdolyak, below), and that bribes and despotism have driven Chicago's political machine for...well, at least since Capone's day, if not much, much longer.
So I started reading the article, and once it started talking about crooked business deals, I immediately thought, "Hmm, where's Ed Vrdolyak in all this?" (It's pronounced "ver-DOH-lee-ack.") Call it cynicism if the first thing I do is to start plugging the usual suspects into some new breaking scandal.
The answer, of course, is "in prison," after he got busted for ripping off all kinds of money from the suburb of Cicero (Al Capone's old stomping grounds, by the way). Talk about a mobbed-up town, Cicero is it. More recently, it was the home of mobster Frank Maltese, and after he died, his widow became the Mayor. Two years ago, Betty Loren-Maltese and Ed Vrdolyak got caught skimming millions of dollars' worth of town employee insurance money in a fraud scam. After that scandal broke, the local papers stopped calling him "the former alderman" and started calling him "Cicero mob boss."
And this is the guy who ran against Richard Daley for mayor, back in the election that was eventually won by Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor. Back then, Fast Eddie was an alderman, and he seemed to make it his job to make Mayor Washington's life miserable. Until, that is, Washington leaned over the table at a City Council meeting, balled up a fist, and offered to give Fast Eddie a "mouthful of something he didn't want."
I'm not sure if that made Harold Washington a hero or a political embarrassment, but it showed that he had cojones.
I digress. So I'm wondering if Fast Eddie is involved. But I guess he couldn't be. Not if he's in jail now, right?
Page two: "There's the mobster whose firm got in after he was convicted for ripping off the Town of Cicero, but before he was sent to prison for 6 1/2 years." Bulls-eye. It amuses me that the Sun-Times doesn't actually name him, that that spend a whole page on Arnold Anzaldua, and only a single sentence on Vrdolyak. I wonder if they're doing Fast Eddie a favor here by not spelling out his previous scams once again, or if they just know that one sentence is really all Chicagoans need to put the story together.
Later in the article, it talks about the Teamsters, unsatisfied with Daley's administration, taking their complaints to Governor Blagojevich. ("Blah-GOY-a-vitch." Live in Chicagoland long enough, and you'll get used to the names.) However, Blagojevich is one of Daley's boys (remember what I said about Chicago politics and despotism), so I don't really expect the Teamsters to be satisfied by going that route, either.
I suppose there are some places where organized crime has to be sneaky, but in Chicago, they only have to avoid being blatant. And trust me, there are miles of gray area between those two terms.