Mark Brown of Sun-Times gets the Patrick Daley Clout Deal right

Please make sure you get the inside story from Mark Brown. In the last decade, Mayor Daley and Chicago’s organized crime boyz have destroyed the taxpayer’s trust. This is a Hired Truck Scandal story. Mayor Daley and his family have profited handsomely on the taxpayer’s dime. I have complained since 2001 about the non-union companies scamming taxpayers. Patrick Daley, son of Mayor “Sgt. Schultz” Daley, has made millions for family scumbags like Robert Vanecko. Chicago’s Department of Water Management is in the thick of this scandal again, we know about the “private sewer inspection” companies. We know about the blank checks from Amalgamated Bank Chicago Bigwigs. Photo by Patrick McDonough]]>Investment doesn't pass smell test
Daley ought to find out details of family members' business deals
December 16, 2007
Of all the companies in all the towns in all the world, Mayor Daley's son and nephew walk into the one that makes most of its money from a City of Chicago contract to inspect and clean sewers.
And then the company never discloses the pair's partial ownership interest, even though the law requires it.
This one doesn't pass the smell test, sweetheart.
There's a lot we still don't know about the deal that saw Patrick Daley and Robert Vanecko take a 5 percent ownership stake in Municipal Sewer Services — and then quietly cash out just as the sewage was hitting the fan at City Hall in the Hired Truck scandal.
For one thing, we don't know how much of a profit they made on their $65,000 investment, although we suspect it was a tidy one.
And we don't know when the mayor became aware of his son's role in the company, although his press secretary tells us she doesn't believe he was aware of it until Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak started asking questions recently.
But we know enough to think the folks with subpoena powers should be asking questions, too.
To be sure, it's an awkward time to be poking into the past business dealings of the mayor's son, coming as it does just days before Patrick Daley, now in the Army, goes off to war.
Did someone know?
If you question the timing of the Sun-Times' story, however, just remember: We're not the ones who kept it a secret for four years.
The story went into the paper pretty much as soon as Novak was able to confirm it, not knowing when he started his investigation that Patrick Daley was about to be deployed overseas.
For now, though, it's arguably a valid reason for the mayor to temporarily duck reporters on the issue, even if the only explanation offered so far on his behalf misses the mark.
"The mayor is a very busy man, and he does not make a practice of knowing the details of other people's investments, including those of his son and/or his nephew," press secretary Jacquelyn Heard told the paper.
With all respect, I would suggest the mayor take part of a day and try to learn some of those details, especially where it involves his own children and the government he runs. Personally, I think he ought to pay attention to his nephews, too, because of the possibility that their business dealings will bite him on the fanny, but I realize that could get sticky in a family — even a family like the Daleys that should expect public scrutiny.
Setting aside the question of whether the mayor knew his son and nephew had a financial stake in a city contract, there is reason to suspect somebody at City Hall knew that somebody with clout had a piece of this particular one.
Disclosure law needs work
Although a predecessor company already had the city contract, Municipal Sewer Services — with young Daley and Vanecko hidden in the background — was golden with city officials from the time it was created and took control of the contract in 2003. Suddenly, the city found more sewers for the company to clean. It received two contract extensions.
The mayor's office complains that this newspaper was unfair in saying the mayor signed the Municipal Sewer Services contracts. Although his signature appears on contracts, the mayor doesn't sign himself, we are told. He delegates that duty to others. OK, I wouldn't want anyone to think the mayor's signature on a contract was evidence in itself that he knew what was involved therein.
At the time he invested in Municipal Sewer Services, Patrick Daley was 29 and an unpaid intern with Cardinal Growth, a Loop investment firm whose principals — Robert Bobb and Joseph McInerney — formed the sewer business with Anthony Duffy, who ran the company. Although Cardinal Growth is in the business of lining up investors, it gave just two other individuals a piece of this deal: the intern and his cousin.
Back in 2003, privately held companies with city contracts were required to disclose everyone with an ownership stake.
As it happens, that law was changed a year later so that now only those with an ownership interest greater than 7.5 percent must be disclosed. In other words, if Patrick Daley — or any of the mayor's other relatives — have since taken a 5 percent or 6 percent interest in a city contract, they would be within their rights to keep that secret.
If nothing else, this situation teaches us the city disclosure law ought to be changed back to the way it was.

5 Replies to “Mark Brown of Sun-Times gets the Patrick Daley Clout Deal right”

  1. Nobody told Daley?
    Mayor says he didn’t know about son’s deal — some things never change

    December 16, 2007
    Opening shot
    Consider the mayor’s son Patrick investing money in a company that finds itself standing in a downpour of city cash. Two questions pop up, waving their arms.

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    First, what kind of 29-year-old invests in sewer companies? When I was 29, my investments were pretty much limited to the rent, college loans and beer. How did such a soon-to-be-lucrative opportunity tumble into young Daley’s lap?

    Second, let’s take Mayor Daley at his word — let’s say he really didn’t know what his son was investing in.

    What kind of dad doesn’t know that? I can’t buy toothpaste without my father quizzing me as to the brand — they’re not all the same, you know. Surely, a man of Daley’s experience must keep tabs on what the pups are doing, professionally.

    Unless … wait a second! Could it be … maybe possibly … that the older Daley didn’t WANT to know? Ya think? The way these things work is that nobody actually ever SAYS anything, not out loud, not directly, so that if the feds ever haul the family before a grand jury, they’ll have full deniability.

    The Chicago way. Nobody has to say anything. Instead, a masonic series of nods and winks, nudges and taps connect the son to the company and the company to the city cash teat, without the unutterable Tetragrammaton of Richard M. Daley’s name ever being spoken.

    In 1979, Milton Rakove wrote a book called We Don’t Want Nobody Nobody Sent — An Oral History of the Daley Years. Academics contemplating similar projects might consider the following title: We Still Don’t Want Nobody Nobody Sent. In a city of flux, some things never change.

  2. Well Patrick McDonough, how much money did you get from the City of Chicago since you are the whistleblower of the Hired Truck Scandal? All you ever got was fired, so what was the point?

  3. The point is to help, whenever and wherever possible, to prevent thieves from stealing from the taxpayers and, whenever and wherever possible, to catch, indict, prosecute, convict and punish those who do.

    Or have you given up on resiting the raping and pillaging of our pocketbooks by these thieving cretins?

  4. i have provided the fbi with info on major white collar crimes that have brought over 20 indictments, my history said…daley was asked if his son had anymore contracts, that was today,his response was “i dont know”.now we all know.yes he does. his son is going down for income tax evasion. the 63 million dollar gift that his nephew recieved was a payoff to protect patrick. something big is going down with all this and the feds are involved. thats why daley daley has had that “the feds are on to me aggravated expression” these past 6 months. the feds need to look at payoffs from oscar d’angelo to patrick daley after that million dollar hit oscar made for assisting maggie daley’s friends with thier ohare bookstore. patrick and oscar are tight. there is something there. oscar saw patrick off to the army when he first joined…and tim novak at the suntimes know moree than he can legally say.i bet he was tipped off by a disgruntled partner of patricks…this story has just begun..keep a republican in the white house for this reason and this reason only, to let attack dog fitzgerald indict daley…thanks.

  5. HEY CHICAGO CLOUT, IT’S NICE TO KNOW THAT SOMEONE STILL HAS BALLS! I’LL KEEP WATCHIN YA….WAITING FOR THE BIG DAY THAT DALEY GOES TO JAIL. I THINK THE FEDS ARE REALLY ON TO HIM. I AM A PRO AT PSYCHOLOGY AND READING PEOPLES BODY LANGUAGE. THIS LAST YEAR AS DALEY SQUIRMS AND FIDGETS, EVEN AT KINDERGARDEN PRESS GATHERINGS, I WAS CONVINCED THAT THE GIG IS UP FOR HIM AND HE KNOWS IT. THIS IS GONNA BE SO SWEET TO WATCH…AND KNOW THIS, PATRICK DALEY HAS BEEN IN THE ARMY FOR 3 YEARS AND NOW HE GOES OVER SEAS ON THE SAME WEEKEND THAT HIS CRIMES ARE EXPOSED. GIMME A BREAK.. THE FEDS NEED TO GO AFTER THAT BIG HALF MILLION DOLLAR PAYOFF THAT WAS FUNNELED THROUGH PATRICK DALEY FROM OSCAR (MAGGIE’S FRIENDS BOOKSTORE AT OHARE)D’ANGELO. AND THE FEDS ARE GONNA FIND THAT ROBERT VANECKO HAS MADE HUGE,HUGE PAYOFFS THROUGH PATRICK. IMAGINE WHAT THE FEDS KNOW THAT WE DON’T KNOW YET…KEEP SHOVELING THE POOP….

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