Taxpayers are left holding the bag as Lansing leaders give pay hikes to cops and firefighters as they retire – prompting pensions to soar. Read more…>

So a minister, a developer and a registered sex offender walk into a polling place…

Sounds like the start of a joke, but this being Chicago, and election season, it’s not far off from the truth.If you’ve been following the news, you know that questions are swirling around a homeless man—identified in the papers as a convicted sex offender named Arthur Hardy Jr.—who reportedly circulated nominating petitions to help a minister (the Rev. James Meeks) and an industrial developer (Robert Halpin) get on the ballot for Chicago mayor.Among the questions:

• Were voter signatures forged on the petitions?
• Did Hardy really circulate all those petitions himself?
• Was the notary public stamp a fake?
• How did Hardy end up in the employ of two supposedly rival campaigns?

Hopefully definitive answers will be forthcoming, although Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown has been doing a good job at chipping away at the mystery. Brown also answered a question many folks likely have: Is it even legal to pay folks to circulate nominating petitions?Yup, “and a lot of candidates do it,” wrote Brown.It’s also legal to hire felons to do the signature gathering. Illinois law “only requires that petition circulators be 18 and a U.S. citizen,” according to the Chicago Tribune. For more on this, Steve Edwards at WBEZ put together a nice primer on Chicago mayoral nominating petitions. Also helping to sort this all out will be the cops. State police now are looking into allegations of hanky panky with petitions.Anyway, the Better Government Association got a hold of nominating petitions for all of the mayoral candidates, and we put them online as a public service. For many would-be voters, what we’re releasing here might not seem terribly exciting. But we’re making the petitions available regardless, in the interest of promoting transparency and access to information that’s not easy for most folks to get at. Consider this a beginning; as the election forges ahead, we’ll be adding more resources.

NOTE: M. Tricia Lee’s documents weren’t available in electronic format, according to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. However, they can be inspected at the board’s offices at 69 W. Washington St. Also, Tyrone Carter filed a statement of candidacy, but no signed petitions. Please let us know if you see anything else strange in the documents.After all, we need a good punch line.This blog entry was reported and written by Robert Herguth, the BGA’s editor of investigations. Contact us with tips, suggestions and complaints at , or at rherguth@bettergov.org.

The warehouse at 940 W. Exchange should be one of the most secure municipal buildings in Chicago.

Not only is it home base for city crews that install and maintain security systems at local government facilities, it’s outfitted with surveillance cameras and an alarm.

So, how could four spools of copper-lined industrial power cable that weigh more than 1,000 pounds apiece disappear in March in a still-unsolved theft?

Turns out the building’s alarm system was on the fritz at the time, and many of the security cameras weren’t working, several sources told the Better Government Association.

What’s more, the cable (worth at least $20,000) had been left out—and wasn’t kept inside a locked storage area like it was supposed to be, the sources said.

The city’s inspector general now is investigating, and exploring the possibility that the heist was an inside job, the sources said.

Among the city employees questioned by investigators: a man who was interviewed about a separate theft of cable at O’Hare Airport years ago.

The BGA is not naming the man because he has not been charged with a crime, but he confirmed to the BGA that he was questioned in both instances. He denied involvement.

Officials with the inspector general’s office and the City of Chicago’s Department of General Services, which operates the warehouse in the old stockyards area of the South Side, wouldn’t comment.

The cable that was stolen was lined with copper and coated with rubber. It presumably was stolen for the value of the copper, which has been a popular target of thieves in recent years.

Sources familiar with the situation said a forklift and truck surely would have been needed to make off with the electrical cable.

Security has since been beefed up, sources said. But theft has been a problem there in the past, one employee told the BGA.

“You might use the copy machine and make a personal copy, who cares,” the employee said. But, referring to the cable disappearing, he added: “This is just like, ridiculous. Totally ridiculous.”

Cook County government employees are feeling the heat these days as newly seated Board President Toni Preckwinkle imposes layoffs and makes significant budget cuts.

But one politically active county worker may lose his job for allegedly seeking heat.

Frank J. Phillips, an $87,000-a-year operating engineer at the county-owned and -operated Oak Forest Hospital, was arrested earlier this winter and charged by prosecutors with attempted theft for trying to steal a giant kerosene heater from a secure area of the medical center, officials said.

Phillips, 46, was suspended without pay on Jan. 13, a day after his arrest, said Lucio Guerrero, spokesman for the Cook County Health and Hospitals System.

A county hearing officer likely will make a decision in coming weeks about whether he should be fired, Guerrero said.

Phillips’s next court date is March 10.

The heater was considered “homeland security” equipment, and was being stored in a restricted area of the hospital, Guerrero said.

Phillips allegedly was caught attaching wheels to the unit, which was described by a county official as resembling the heaters on the sidelines of NFL games. Several sources within county government said the heater appeared destined for a tailgating event.

But Phillips—who in 2004 donated $300 to then-Cook County Board President John Stroger’s campaign fund and has given $1,000 over the years to a political committee run by a union—told the BGA: “That would never happen, it wouldn’t even fit” in a car.

Phillips, who started work at the county in 1988, insisted he was assembling the heater so he could use it outdoors for a boiler project at the hospital.

He said he was making do with equipment that was sitting around because “every time you need something fixed they give you $5 and a stick of gum.”

The BGA congratulates the winners of The 2011 Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Awards for Investigative Reporting. To learn more about the Awards and to see previous winners, visit our website www.bettergov.org.

First Place Award

Bob Segall, Bill Ditton & Cyndee Hebert

“Reality Check: Where are the Jobs?”

WTHR-TV Indianapolis

>During the worst recession of our lifetime, Indiana’s Economic Development Corporation boasted about creating 100,000 new jobs and billions of dollars in economic development deals for the state. After the state denied records requests, three journalists at WTHR-TV in Indianapolis decided they had to see it for themselves to believe it. The crew hit the road, logging 8,000 miles visiting Indiana’s economic success stories. What did they find? Abandoned factories, empty cornfields, and laid-off workers! This 18-month investigation exposed how state leaders inflated Indiana’s job numbers, and how companies that received publicly funded tax incentives had actually laid off hundreds of workers. The investigation and the creation of a massive job-numbers database prompted reforms and demanded transparency.

Second Place Award

Mick Dumke & Ben Joravsky

“The Shadow Budget: Who Wins Daley’s TIF Game”

Chicago Reader

>In Second Place, a piece about a hidden budget in Chicago worth more than $500 million dollars a year. There was no public budget for the TIF Fund. No itemized expenses. So when reporters got a tip that a secret ward-by-ward budget existed, they jumped on it. For the first time ever, the city’s secret slush fund was exposed. The Chicago Reader investigation revealed that 60 percent of the money raised through the anti-poverty TIF program was actually spent in the some of the city’s wealthiest communities.

Last year, Mick Dumke and Ben Joravsky of the Chicago Reader won third place for their investigation into the privatization of Chicago’s Parking Meters. This year, they take home second place for “The Shadow Budget: Who Wins Daley’s TIF Game.”

Third Place Award

Brian Brueggemann & Mike Fitzgerald

“Tax Buyers, Politicians Benefit from Tax Sales”

Belleville News-Democrat

>In Third Place, the story of an elected official who allegedly cashed-in on hard times.

Imagine this, the recession hits and you can’t afford to pay your property taxes. An investor or tax buyer comes along and purchases your delinquent tax debt. You pay a penalty interest rate. The legal limit is 18 percent interest. But in Madison County, Illinois, hundreds of property owners were paying as much as 100-percent interest. In 2009, that added up to $2 million dollars in interest to tax buyers. Conveniently, those same tax buyers contributed heavily to the campaign of the man who arranged the tax sales… Madison County Treasurer, Fred Bathon. As a direct result of “Tax Buyers, Politicians Benefit from Tax Sales,” the US Attorney for Southern Illinois and the Illinois Attorney General are investigating.

Meritorious Award for Commitment to Investigative Journalism

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

>For the first time, we honor a single media outlet for dedicating a significant amount of resources to in-depth investigative journalism. While many news organizations have limited or abandoned investments in investigative reporting, this year the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel submitted three notable entries by five journalists:

• “Side Effects” by Greg Borowski
• “Patients in Peril” by Meg Kissinger and Steve Schultze
• “Wiped Clean” by Jon Diedrich and Ben Poston

In the opening scenes of the 1991 Ron Howard film “Backdraft,” two young brothers are horsing around in the Chicago firehouse where their father works when an emergency call comes in. As firefighters ready their engine to answer the call, the younger brother beams when his dad asks if he wants to ride along.

They reach the scene with sirens blazing, and the son watches his father pull a child from the top floor of the burning building. But then a tragic turn: A gas leak leads to an explosion, and the boy’s father dies in the blaze. From there, the film flashes forward decades when both brothers are Chicago firefighters.

The movie is loosely based on the lives of Chicago Fire Commissioner Robert Hoff and his older brother Raymond Hoff, third-generation Chicago firefighters whose father was killed fighting a fire in a South Side apartment building in 1962, according to media reports.

The film came to mind recently because Commissioner Hoff—presumably depicted as the younger brother in “Backdraft” who rode along with his firefighter-father – is now at the center of a controversy involving fire department “ride alongs.”

Investigators with Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson’s office discovered that a battalion chief took an adult son along on fire emergencies and allowed him to stay overnight at a Chicago firehouse for a period of nearly two years. Ferguson recommended a 20-day suspension for the battalion chief, who “recklessly exposed the City to liability,” according to the OIG’s office.

But Commissioner Hoff ignored that recommendation and gave the battalion chief – whom city and fire officials wouldn’t identify – a “verbal reprimand” with no time off, in the process creating more friction with Ferguson’s office. (This is at least the third time in the past few months that the commissioner and Ferguson have squared off.)

Fire department spokesman Larry Langford insisted the battalion chief received the lesser punishment because the agency follows a practice of “progressive discipline,” where employees with otherwise good personnel records start with softer punishments. “A 20-day suspension as the first step in discipline jumps over a lot of territory,” Langford said in an email.

According to Langford, Hoff said his childhood experiences didn’t weigh heavily on how he decided to discipline the battalion chief.

Even so, the similarities between this case and Hoff’s personal story are hard to miss. In a 2011 Chicago Sun-Times article on the death of his older brother Raymond Hoff, Commissioner Hoff recalled how he lived with his firefighter-brother. “I was 14,” Robert Hoff said, according to the article. “Every weekend he took me to work with him. He showed me everything.”

Langford said requests for ride-alongs are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but approval is typically reserved for individuals with a legitimate interest in firefighting activity or research – such as journalists or academics. Anyone approved for a ride along must complete a waiver of liability (which apparently was not filled out in the case of the battalion chief.) Langford said the department also has a program allowing medical students to ride along in ambulances as a part of their educational process.

The disagreement over the battalion chief’s discipline is just the latest incident in which the fire commissioner and the inspector general have butted heads.

In a letter dated Dec. 1, 2011, Ferguson asked Robert Hoff to retract an emailed directive that all fire department communications with the inspector general had to first be approved by the commissioner.

The inspector general disagreed with Robert Hoff’s assertion that the email was misinterpreted, quoting the email’s language: “no correspondence, documents, interviews, or any other requests from the Inspector General shall be honored unless approved by the Fire Commissioner. Any contact initiated by the Office of the Inspector General should be directed to the Office of the Fire Commissioner.” The directive has since been rescinded, according to the inspector general.

And last fall, while city officials sought ways to trim the city budget, the inspector general recommended that fire department staffing levels be reduced, specifically by cutting back the number of firefighters on fire trucks and engines from five to four. But Commissioner Hoff strongly opposed the move and said doing so would lead to more fire fatalities.

We respect the fire commissioner’s background, experience and passion, but we hope he doesn’t hold a “can-do-no-wrong” view of the fire department.

The ride along controversy presents a delicate balance. On one side, if Commissioner Hoff’s life illustrates how ride alongs can spark the passion and work ethic necessary to become a highly decorated firefighter capable of rising to the department’s top job, they should be encouraged. Harsh discipline for the battalion chief might do the opposite.

On the other side, Ferguson points out that light discipline sends the wrong message: that leadership is unconcerned with reporting misconduct or cooperating fully with the inspector general’s office.

In a letter accompanying his quarterly report, Ferguson notes that several of the battalion chief’s subordinates failed to report the alleged misconduct for fear of reprisal.

“The appearance of such an attitude at the senior level filters down to rank and file City employees and freezes out those who would want to blow the whistle on waste, fraud, or abuse of City resources,” he wrote.

In other words, there are bad actors out there. Let’s make sure they don’t get a free ride.

This blog post was written and reported by BGA Senior Investigator Alden Loury, who can be reached at (312) 821-9036 or at aloury@bettergov.org.

Hard to say what the best political speech or sound bite has been over the years.

Some members of “The Greatest Generation” might remember the proud defiance of Great Britain Prime Minister Winston Churchill as the Battle of Britain commenced:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4BVzYGeF0M]

Others may be stirred by the selfless “New Frontier” patriotism of President John F. Kennedy:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdA1ikkoEc]

Locally, west suburban residents might have been moved by the eloquence this past autumn of DuPage County Forest Preserve Commissioner Joseph Cantore, who, in response to what he regarded as misleading accusations by campaign opponents, orated:

>“In this era of everyone dancing around issues and being whining crybabies afraid to aggravate anyone, I would like to say this: If you don’t like what I’m saying, too bad. Because I’ve had it with liars, opportunists, backstabbers, and BS artists.”

Almost brings a tear to your eye it’s so beautiful.

We bring up Cantore’s remarks not just to poke fun—they were made in the heat of the November election, which had gotten a little testy, and he’s one of those folks known to speak bluntly—but to call attention to something else he brought up.

Cantore, a Republican who ended up winning his race, also defended campaign contributions given to him and other commissioner candidates by the law firm of the agency’s long-time attorney, Robert Mork. According to just-released meeting minutes from the Nov. 2 board meeting, Cantore said:

“First, there is nothing unethical or illegal about a donation from Mr. Mork to any of us. Mr. Mork is free to donate to whomever he wishes. Last time I looked, the long list of rights certain members of another political party have done their best to take from us hasn’t gotten to who you can and cannot give donations to, although they do their best and are blatantly hypocritical about it. By that logic, I shouldn’t give any County Board members a campaign donation who I believe in and are doing a good job (and vice a versa). Is that a conflict of interest? How about a full time district employee giving a donation because they believe in the job we’re doing and happen to be a friend? Another conflict?”

Without taking sides between Democrats and Republicans—the BGA is non-partisan—we do feel confident in saying this: Wow.

It’s true there’s nothing illegal about taking campaign cash from taxpayer-funded employees you oversee—whether they’re lawyers or maintenance guys. But the ethics of it is a totally different matter. It’s a pretty clear potential conflict of interest—if not on the giving end, certainly on the receiving end. Why? Well, because as a forest preserve commissioner, you help control the destiny (and, perhaps, the wages) of agency employees and contractors.

Can you do that objectively and fairly if they’re coughing up $50 or $500 or $1,000 to your campaign fund?

Maybe if you’re a respected ethicist and statesman, like Sir Thomas More, but for most of us, this could present an ethical dilemma.

We’re not trying to be whining crybabies, but there’s an easy solution:

The district—a governmental body overseeing a multi-million-dollar budget, hundreds of employees and more than 25,000 acres—should implement a policy barring these types of donations.

This blog entry was reported and written by Robert Herguth, the BGA’s editor of investigations. Contact us with tips, suggestions and complaints at , or at rherguth@bettergov.org.

It would appear that William Cellini’s reign as a state powerbroker is over, especially since he’s probably headed for jail.

That’s in sharp contrast to a few years before his conviction last November in federal court of extortion conspiracy and soliciting a bribe. At that time, the real estate investment firm he ran was flush with tens of millions of dollars in fees provided by the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) of Illinois.

Cellini’s Commonwealth Realty Advisors received $30 million between 2001-2010, the Better Government Association found.

It was Cellini’s influence on the state’s largest public pension fund that helped lead to his downfall. Cellini was convicted of scheming to pressure a co-owner of investment firm Capri Capital in 2004 to make campaign contributions to then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich in return for Capri’s managing some TRS investments worth $220 million.

Federal authorities have alleged in court documents that Blagojevich insiders Tony Rezko and Christopher Kelly were also part of the scheme to force Capri to make payments to the ex-governor’s campaign fund.

The plot backfired when Capri co-owner Tom Rosenberg, a Hollywood producer whose films include “Million Dollar Baby,” refused to give money to Blagojevich, according to court documents.

Rosenberg threatened to go to the authorities.

To try to prevent that from happening, Cellini, Rezko, Kelly and TRS board member Stuart Levine decided Capri should get the $220 million investment stake anyway. But they vowed to use their influence to block Capri from receiving future state business, federal authorities alleged in court documents.

In October 2008, a federal grand jury indicted Cellini on charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, extortion conspiracy, attempted extortion and soliciting a bribe.

Cellini was subsequently convicted in federal court, where Rosenberg was a key government witness.

Cellini’s family still has property and business interests in Springfield and downstate, so a comeback for the resilient political powerhouse is always a possibility.

But that’s a long shot: Cellini faces up to 30 years in prison and his firm, Commonwealth Realty, has closed. His sentencing is scheduled for June 15.

This blog entry was reported and written by BGA Investigator Andrew Schroedter, who can be reached at (312) 821-9035, or at aschroedter@bettergov.org.

By the Better Government Association,

with Dane Placko/FOX Chicago News

CHICAGO — When you call 911, you hope the police will respond in a matter of minutes.

But some residents of Chicago’s West Side Austin neighborhood just hope they’ll see a police car at all.

>Ron and Serethea Reid have become so alarmed by slow and non-existent 911 response, they’ve formed a community organization to make their voices heard. They said if it’s a shooting or major emergency, the police will get there—sometimes quite quickly. But it’s a different story, they said, for quality of life issues like drug sales, public drinking and fights.

“There’s been far too many instances where there’s been no response at all,” said Serethea Reid.

Ald. Deborah Graham (29th), whose office is in the Austin police district, said even she had to wait when she called 911 because an upset young man was in the office.

The police department took their time coming, at least it felt that way,” said Graham.

Since sounding the alarm last summer, the Central Austin Neighborhood Association has met several times with high ranking police officials and Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management (OEMC). But when they ask for specific information about 911 response times in their neighborhood, they’re told again and again they can’t have those numbers because the city doesn’t want the bad guys to know where response is slow.

“If we start making public response times, we’re creating a situation that could be an advantage to someone other than these good citizens,” said OEMC Deputy Director Clarence Thomas.

We got the same answer when we tried digging into last summer’s fatal shooting of nine-year-old Tanaja Stokes. She and her seven-year-old cousin were jumping rope in the Roseland neighborhood when a crowd of gangbangers began shouting at one another. A neighbor who does not want to be identified called 911, but said it took police more than 15 minutes to respond. By then, Tanaja had been caught in gang crossfire.

“If (the police) would’ve come when I called… those boys would have seen the police and they probably would have kept going,” said the neighbor.

We wanted to know whether that call got the same attention as other 911 calls throughout the city. But the OEMC has refused all our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for 911 response times for each police district.

“This is a work in progress, and it’s a work in progress in partnership with the citizens of the community,” Chicago Police Commander Jim Roussel said. “So all the questions that are being raised are great questions and we need to have honest, forthright conversations about it.”

Five outstanding Midwestern journalists won top prizes for investigative journalism in a contest sponsored by the Better Government Association through a grant from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. The awards were presented by Mr. Driehaus at a reception at the Arts Club of Chicago on Tuesday night.

>> Raquel Rutledge won the first-place award for “Cashing in on Kids,” a series from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Rutledge and the Journal Sentinel spent more than a year investigating the taxpayer-financed child-care subsidy program. They reviewed thousands of public documents, found whistleblowers within the system, and interviewed dozens of sources, exposing a trail of phony companies, fake reports and shoddy oversight that allowed for system-wide scamming and cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. The investigation produced more than 50 stories and continues to expose problems in the system. These stories prompted sweeping reforms, five new laws, and a crackdown on unscrupulous childcare providers — in addition to saving Wisconsin an estimated $45 million.

>> The second-place award went to Jennifer Dixon and Tina Lam for “Detroit’s Public Pensions: Shaky Deals and Globe-Trotting Trustees,” published in Detroit Free Press. Dixon and Lam discovered that the fiscal maintenance of both of Detroit’s public pension systems was grossly unmonitored and mismanaged, and that the two funds (with assets of $5.5 billion dollars) lost $90 million dollars in three failed investment deals.

>> Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke were awarded third place for their three-part series “FAIL: Chicago’s Parking Meter Fiasco,” a Chicago Reader piece which uncovered the inside story of how Chicago’s controversial and problem-plagued parking meter privatization program came about.

The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation grant enabled the winners to share a cash prize of $5,000.

“Investigative reporting is the lifeblood of journalism and a key to holding elected officials accountable,” BGA Executive Director Andy Shaw said. “We deeply appreciate the commitment of Richard Driehaus and his foundation to encouraging investigative reporting by underwriting the competition and the reception.”

The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation is also the major funder of the BGA’s investigative program, which is doubling in size with the addition of three award-winning veteran journalists: Bob Reed, Bob Herguth and John Conroy. Shaw introduced the BGA’s new investigative unit at the Arts Club reception.