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McHenry County: A Political Podunk No More?
We used to see McHenry County as a sleepy Illinois outpost; a simple, aw-shucks cousin to the fast-talking, wink-and-a-nod, wheeling-and-dealing city of Chicago. But consider just the past few months:...
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Dispatch from Division: Reform Fight Takes a Party Break
By Andy Shaw, BGA President & CEO I didn’t see the shakedown coming as I approached Butch McGuire’s on Division Street for the first party of the holiday season on the Tuesday night before...
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Blago 2.0: To Watch, or Not to Watch?
By Andy Shaw, BGA President & CEO One of our BGA interns, Emily Jurlina, ran the Boston Marathon on Monday. Folks in the office tracked her progress online, and at about the halfway point, her...
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2011 Chicago mayoral petitions, already under scrutiny, now available for...
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...
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Illinois’ Fiscal Crisis: We’re No. 2!
One of the nation’s most influential financial analysts sees big trouble ahead for Illinois. Meredith Whitney is sounding the alarm about the dire fiscal condition of the nation’s 15 largest states....
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Clearing the air under the CTA’s June subway fire probe
The safety and security of passengers should be the CTA’s top priority. So it was encouraging to see the transit agency produce a hard-hitting and scathing internal report delving into the...
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Candidate for Cook County Pension Post Pleaded Guilty In 1985 Vote Fraud Case
A former Cook County government employee who pleaded guilty to vote fraud in 1985 is now running for election to the Cook County Pension Board, an estimated $6.9 billion retirement fund serving nearly...
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Wealthy Donors Backing Hopefuls In Chicago’s Hot 43rd Ward Election
In 2005, Jennifer Tremblay got into hot water with the City of Chicago when officials determined she was a minority business front for some members of the O’Brien family, of the well-known O’Brien’s...
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Radio Silence in Melrose Park, Despite Some Promising Reforms
Melrose Park remains a curious place. Historically it was a town with strong organized crime influences. While the current leaders of Melrose Park may not like that image, they don’t do a lot to...
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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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State Filing on Medicaid Delays Asks Court to Reconsider
State health officials are siding with large insurance companies to block a federal court decision supporting claims the state government is neglecting its responsibility to oversee billions of...
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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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