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FBI Informant Dishes on McHenry County Sheriff’s Office; Feds Take Pass
On and off for three years, the FBI used a McHenry County sheriff’s deputy as a confidential informant, investigating his claims of rampant corruption within the department, even wiring him up with a...
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City Workers Goof, Leave Warehouse Unattended
Yet another security breach was reported at a South Side municipal warehouse that earlier this year saw two tons of copper-lined cable vanish in a still-unsolved theft. Days after the Better...
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BGA Honors 2010 Investigative Award Winners
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....
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Leave it to Beavers
Last month Bill Beavers was found guilty of using his campaign funds as a personal piggy bank – of plunking down vast amounts of cash at slot machines and not reporting it as income. Until that...
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Dangerous Political Terrain in Maywood?
Check out the following “musing” by Maywood Village Clerk Gary Woll, a veteran political figure in the near western suburb. We knew Maywood was hairy in various ways, but politics is literally a...
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Bloomberg News: Feds Falling Down on FOIA
Bloomberg News, an international finance and political information service, found that major U.S. federal government agencies are too slow or are outright failing to comply with Freedom of Information...
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ROUNDUP: Peepers, Parkers and Loaders — Oh My!
>> PEEPER BACK TO WORK FOR STATE If you take a peek inside the Illinois Department of Transportation’s (IDOT) offices in Schaumburg these days, you might see James Stumpner, 48. Paid nearly...
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Legislative Lovefest Far From Picture Perfect
There are public servants in the trenches who deserve our gratitude and respect. In a somewhat literal sense, think about the American troops who risk their lives on a daily basis. In a figurative...
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Rumble in the Courts
A veteran Chicago attorney recently filed a defamation lawsuit against Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown that claims she sought to damage the lawyer’s reputation in retaliation for his...
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BGA Updates Popular Payroll Database With 2011 Salaries
Want to know how much a public employee is paid? Then ask the Better Government Association (BGA). The BGA—a non-partisan, non-profit government watchdog—has updated its popular Payroll Database with...
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Political Dredging Stirs Muck in Oak Brook
Last year, municipal leaders in Oak Brook hired a law firm to get to the bottom of three things: how the now-former police chief, Tom Sheahan, was hired in 2005 by the village government under a...
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ROUNDUP: Lollygagging, Finagling and Justifying
>> O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago is the governmental agency responsible for processing human waste. But the organization also must...
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CTA Insecurity a Boon for Joyriders?
>> SECURITY SIEVE AT CTA Let’s say there are a couple hundred buses at the CTA’s 103rd Street garage. And let’s say each one of those buses is worth a few hundred thousand dollars. So let’s...
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BGA Posts City of Chicago’s ‘Do-Not-Hire’ List
If you saw Wednesday’s headline in the Chicago Tribune you’ll realize the City of Chicago has been less than successful in its commendable effort to keep employees who’ve quit or been fired for...
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Short-Term Appointment is Deciding Vote on Taxes, Death Penalty
As published on The Welles Park Bulldog News, by Patrick Boylan Kathleen C Moore, a retired school teacher from Lincoln Park, was appointed by 11th legislative district Democratic committeemen to fill...
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Metra ‘Observers’ Monitoring Ticket Collection on Crowded Trains
It’s a common scene on Metra after events such as Lollapalooza and the Navy Pier fireworks: hoards of passengers pile into train cars, conductors can’t easily navigate through the crowded aisles to...
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Dispatch from DuPage: What about Bob?
>> BIG BUCKS SAY BYE-BYE DuPage County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom wasn’t terribly happy fielding our questions the other day following a County Board meeting. To paraphrase his initial...
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Call for Entries: 2011 BGA Investigative Journalism Awards
With the support of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the BGA Investigative Journalism Awards recognize the best in government-related investigative reporting from across the Midwest region. The...
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$20K Worth of Copper Cable Stolen from ‘Secure’ City Warehouse
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...
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Shady Associations: Mayor Daley Held to Lower Standard
To read the main story, and to see the 600-page FBI file, click here. Under a long-standing consent decree between the federal government and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, union members...
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