A white-collar municipal employee is probably wearing an undercover recording device, intimates the Chicago Sun Times, and more indictments are likely in "what might be the most significant investigation of City Hall corruption ever" in the City That Works. Today's Sun-Times piece has an excellent overview of the city Hired Truck program, at the heart of the current investigation, and the systemic political campaigning by city workers on the taxpayers' dime. That's now also part of the probe into the high-stakes culture of trading taxpayer money for political favors, to keep the modern-day Machine Democrats in power. I guess that still, Chicago Dems don't really trust they'd get re-elected on their merits. Think of it as under-the-table welfare for nervous incumbents, and the many well-fed "little people" who depend on them. Thirty-six individuals have been indicted by the feds in Operation Hired Truck; 20 work for the city; and 23 of the 36 have already pled guilty, most of them offering to cooperate in the continuing federal investigation. No horse heads in anyone's bed yet, but it's early.

It has been 22 months since the Chicago Sun-Times exposed how the city's $40 million-a-year Hired Truck Program was laden with waste, fraud and corruption, a haven for people with political clout or ties to organized crime. And City Hall has no idea when, or where, the resulting federal investigation will end....For decades, the city had been hiring out privately owned trucks, on nothing more than a handshake, to haul material at city work sites. Often, the Sun-Times found, the trucks weren't needed, but their owners -- some with ties to the mob or the mayor -- still were told to show up. Some trucking company owners admitted they had to pay bribes to city officials or contribute to certain politicians.

They call this "pay to play." So far, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has escaped indictment in the whole affair.

In August, Daley spent two hours answering questions from federal agents as part of the investigation, which has expanded to include city hiring practices. Daley -- who has hired a prominent Washington attorney -- has not been accused of wrongdoing. Daley has vowed that the city will cooperate with the federal investigation and said he was unaware of any wrongdoing, either in the Hired Truck Program or city hiring. To clean up the corruption, Daley has hired a new inspector general, banned city contractors from donating to his campaign and drastically scaled back the Hired Truck Program, which he is still vowing to eliminate.

Vowing to eliminate? The city also vowed to end political hiring.

The feds have charged that city officials routinely skirted a court order by awarding city jobs to people who worked on political campaigns. The court decree barred City Hall from taking politics into account when hiring all but 1,000 employees. City officials rigged job interviews and tests to ensure that their candidates got the jobs, the feds say. The hiring was overseen by the Mayor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.... As the government's investigation has grown, prosecutors have gotten key cooperation from people with knowledge of both the Hired Truck Program and political hiring. Former First Deputy Water Commissioner Donald Tomczak and Daniel Katalinic, a high-ranking Streets and Sanitation official, provided insights into the corruption of the Hired Truck world.

The two men also told federal investigators about the armies of city workers they were directed by the Mayor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs to campaign for specific candidates. After Election Day, Tomczak, Katalinic and other political coordinators would seek to reward their troops by asking City Hall to give them promotions and raises, according to court records.

So the Mayor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs is up to its armpits in allegations of corruption by City Hall insiders, but rest assured someone(s) will take the fall for Daley. That's how it works in The City That Works.

At the root of Hired Truck was city work sites, and ingrained cronyism that rewarded both contractors and city "workers" for fealty to the somewhat slicker, Chicago Democratic Machine 2.0. (Daley's Dad Mayor Richard J., "The Boss," wrote the code for Machine 1.0). Public works in Chicago have always been a gravy train for people who'd rather not go to the trouble of getting work the honest way. Now, the biggest public works project in the city's history is lifting off - a huge and fatally flawed plan to expand O'Hare International Airport. The Chicago Tribune's comprehensive investigation of the massive O'Hare expansion plan suggests it would have no lasting effect on the supposedly urgent problem of flight delays, and would actually worsen ground safety considerably.

But then, projects at O'Hare have always been more about awarding "connected" contractors than anything else. And, the Sun-Times reports, O'Hare contracts are likely the next target of the federal investigators spearheading the Hired Truck inquiry.

TECHNORATI TAGS: CHICAGO, CORRUPTION, RICHARD DALEY, HIRED TRUCK, O'HARE

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Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 6, 2005 07:07 PM