Enjoy this nice little beauty, click here: http://cbs2chicago.com/local/truth.in.politics.2.789703.html Mike Flannery is getting smart to Chicago Politicians that are double dipping. Two Department of Water Management employees enjoy their second jobs a State Representatives. They also enjoyed their Shakman Violations that helped them get up the ladder. I think some people say “That’s how we Roll”. Chicago is broke, I told you that a long time ago. Mayor Daley is in China as Chicago rolls into bankruptcy. If the CTA tracks are falling apart, why would we need new trains? The phones are off the hook for double dippers, just ask John D’Amico. If you ever have been fired from Chicago for missing too many days off, just contact us. Patrick McDonough.
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State Representative and Chicago Department of Water Management Bigwig Luis Arroyo likes the double dip
Response We did not!
Hiring practices still flawed, fed monitor says.
BY NATASHA KORECKI Federal Courts Reporter nkorecki@suntimes.com
The City of Chicago has failed to keep its promise to clean up its hiring — two years after the mayor’s patronage chief was convicted in a hiring scandal — a court-appointed monitor said in a report released Thursday.
In a 17-page court filing, Noelle Brennan, appointed by a federal judge to oversee the city’s hiring practices, said the city and its Human Resources Department failed to comply with many provisions of a plan that aims to keep hiring fair and free of political considerations.
The finding comes after a 2007 year-end report in which Brennan accused the city of slipping backward with “subtle types of manipulation of the hiring process.”
Among the concerns Brennan outlined Thursday: failing to provide applicants with their test scores, failing to test all applicants the same way, ongoing problems with promoting foremen, and failing to weed out unqualified applicants for positions.
In one instance, Human Resources sent 431 applications to the Mayor’s Office of Special Events for one position.
“This could easily result in highly qualified applicants never receiving consideration,” she wrote.
In last year’s report, Brennan said the alleged violations she uncovered in response to 685 complaints ran the gamut — from “hundreds” of city employees illegally “acting up” in higher-paid, temporary positions, to the city’s failure to “meaningfully enforce consequences for noncompliance.”
Brennan said more work needs to be done between the city and monitor’s office to correct the problems.
City Hall still not following anti-patronage rules, monitor says
By Laurie Cohen
and Todd Lighty
Tribune reporters
Mayor Richard Daley’s administration still isn’t following basic rules designed to keep city hiring free of politics, a court-appointed official said Thursday.
A year after submitting a blueprint to clean up its scandal-plagued hiring system, the city has “failed to comply” with parts of its own plan, city hiring monitor Noelle Brennan said in a report filed in federal court.
Download HiringMonitorReport.pdf
“Instances of non-compliance this soon after the adoption of the [plan] are particularly disturbing and need to be addressed as quickly as possible,” Brennan said.
Brennan’s assessment is important because the city wants to end decades-long court oversight of its hiring practices by early next year. But first the administration needs to convince U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen it is complying with hiring reforms.
Brennan was particularly critical of the city’s Human Resources Department, saying that many of the problems occurred during the period when the department was without a commissioner.
In June, Daley picked politically connected lawyer Homero Tristan to replace Jacqueline King, who had left as the human resources chief five months earlier.
Tristan has headed a political action committee, Chicago Latino 100, that has made contributions to the mayor and to the 25th Ward Democratic organization of Ald. Daniel Solis, a longtime Daley ally.
Jenny Hoyle, spokeswoman for the Law Department, said the city was still reviewing Brennan’s report. Hoyle said Tristan is committed to working “to ensure full compliance” with the hiring plan.
The hiring plan calls for a strong Human Resources Department to make sure job candidates meet minimum qualifications and to prevent the hiring of politically connected but unqualified job-seekers.
Brennan said Human Resources has violated the hiring plan in some cases by not even reviewing résumés of candidates for senior manager jobs to see if they were qualified.
Instead, candidates were expected to screen themselves by answering questions online.
In one case, five of six candidates referred to Fleet Management for interviews didn’t appear to meet basic qualifications, Brennan said. Fleet Management officials canceled the interviews after Brennan’s office notified them of the problem.
At times, applicants who didn’t answer the computer questions were still referred for job interviews, Brennan said.
For example, Human Resources sent 431 applications to the Mayor’s Office of Special Events for a single vacancy. “This could easily result in highly qualified applicants never receiving consideration due to the volume of applications,” Brennan said.
One of the biggest challenges reporters have covering Gov. Blagojevich is they have to fact-check every word that comes out of his mouth.
Way too often, Blagojevich ventures beyond the generally accepted boundaries of political spin into out-and-out lies and complete fabrications.
The man just makes stuff up.
For instance, Blagojevich has claimed over and over that a Democratic House member confided that he feared losing his job with the City of Chicago if he voted for the governor’s proposed multibillion-dollar construction bill. Blagojevich says House Speaker Michael Madigan, who opposes the governor’s bill, had used his awesome powers to put the heat on this unnamed legislator.
Blagojevich repeated this claim during a Wednesday press conference.
“They fear their leader, Mr. Madigan, and if Mike Madigan tells them to vote a certain way, they will tell you privately, and I’ve had these discussions with a couple of state reps, one of whom said, ‘I’m afraid if I vote for the jobs bill I’ll be fired from my job at Streets and Sanitations [sic]. I’m afraid I’ll lose my job.’ ”
This was the first time the governor had revealed where that mystery lawmaker worked.
A check showed only one House Democrat works at Streets and San: state Rep. Rich Bradley (D-Chicago).
Trouble is, Rep. Bradley told me he hasn’t spoken with the governor in about two years. Bradley claims he is opposed to the capital plan as written because the House Latino Caucus opposes it.
I had heard from numerous sources, including Deputy House Majority Leader Gary Hannig, that the governor announced during a legislative leaders meeting that Rep. John D’Amico (D-Chicago) was the state representative who feared losing his city job. D’Amico works for the Chicago Department of Water, not Streets and San, but I guess I could see how the governor might be confused.
So, I called Rep. D’Amico.
Turns out, D’Amico did talk to Blagojevich.
As D’Amico tells the story, Gov. Blagojevich asked D’Amico if he was voting against the capital plan because he was afraid of losing his job.
D’Amico said he told the governor that he has been in the union for 26 years and there’s no way he could be fired over a legislative issue unless they first canned a whole bunch of people with less seniority to get at him. Rep. D’Amico said he told the governor he opposed the capital plan because Mayor Daley was against it. D’Amico told me he informed the governor that he didn’t fear losing his job over the capital bill.
Blagojevich also repeated a claim this week that he had asked U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel to call the legislator and assure him he wouldn’t lose his city gig.
D’Amico said he did receive a phone call from Emanuel, but he said Emanuel never mentioned the threat stuff. Instead, Emanuel just lobbied D’Amico to vote for the capital bill.
D’Amico asked Emanuel if he knew that Daley was against the capital bill, and Emanuel immediately “backed off.” Emanuel is a Blagojevich ally, but he is a Daley creation.
No way would he want to work against the mayor’s interests.
A source close to Emanuel confirmed everything D’Amico said. Blagojevich’s press office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Do you understand a bit better now why it’s so darned difficult to deal with this governor?
When you hear people like Mayor Daley say that there’s a “trust issue” with Blagojevich, it’s because nothing he says can be believed — not even his favorite story about how Mike Madigan’s members fear losing their city jobs.
John D’Amico gets a salary of $91,520 from the city, according to the Sun-Times’ new public employee database.
How could the city possibly justify that salary, given the fact that D’Amico spends half his year hanging around Springfield and much of the other half (I’m giving him the big-time benefit of the doubt, here) serving the constituents of his legislative district?
Nice work if you can get it.
Why the crap to get this guy fired from the city, he gets a pension and a paycheck from the city hell where are the reporters at with tis one where is the monitor at? hell we got MR. Arroyo that works with the laurino clan too. hell we got the Sanberg brothers at the water management too, the the heck is going on with that too?
WHERE IS THE MONITOR AT WITH THIS? SHOULD WE CALLED THE INSPECTOR GENERAL YET?
‘Pool Boy’ takes the plunge for Daley, resigns his post
John Kass
August 10, 2008
Before the first Olympic diver splashed down in Beijing, Mayor Richard Daley stretched his mighty hands across the oceans to pull the plug on his beloved Pool Boy back in Chicago.
Who says Daley doesn’t have reach?
The official line is that David “Pool Boy” Ochal, the mayor’s first deputy commissioner of aviation, resigned late last week over the Great Generator X Caper. But don’t believe he resigned.
It’s not logical. It’s not Chicago. This one was signed, sealed and delivered by the mayor himself. No one else at City Hall would dare remove the favored mayoral Pool Boy without his imperial consent.
My Friday column about Pool Boy ran on the Tribune’s front page—and there was video shot by WGN-TV. It was all about Generator X.
That’s the generator delivered to Ochal’s home by ComEd workers assigned to O’Hare International Airport, while the rest of Ochal’s neighbors who weren’t big-shot political hacks had to buy their own generators or sweat during a two-day power outage.
The ComEd foreman confirmed the delivery, saying he was only following orders. The neighbors were rightfully angry. Daley decided it was time for Pool Boy to dry off.
“You know how kids chase an ice cream truck down the street in the summer? Well, we were without power for days, and when we saw the ComEd truck cruising the block, we chased it,” said one neighbor, describing the scene outside Ochal’s house. “You bet we were angry.”
City Inspector General David Hoffman—a former assistant U.S. attorney loathed by the Daleys because he’s doing his job—decided to investigate. By Friday morning, his investigators, including former FBI agents from the public corruption squad, were swarming over Pool Boy’s neighborhood on the Far Northwest Side.
They’ve been interested in Pool Boy for some time. He’s a Daley political operative. He was embraced by mayoral political brains Jeremiah Joyce and Tim Degnan, and he’s watched over their interests.
Hoffman’s investigators—who have a good working relationship with federal prosecutors and the FBI—have already kick-started joint investigations into building inspectors, zoning and occupancy permits on Rush Street.
They’re also looking at airport contracts, from construction to concessions. Since Ochal ran the airports, the mayor decided discretion was the better part of valor.
Before we go any further, let’s clear the water. Ochal has not been charged with any crime. Yet when investigators contacted Ochal on Friday, Ochal refused to speak.
It was the same message he gave me the other night, as he stared at me in the pale moonlight from across his fence, then realized it was me and hid behind his beautiful poolside shrubbery.
You can understand Ochal deciding not to talk. He can’t lock himself into a statement. Daley can’t afford Ochal throwing more heat on ComEd, or someone will start asking more ComEd-related questions.
So Ochal’s resignation was announced in a terse message sent out at 5 p.m. Chicago time—the witching hour when the mayor usually issues news he hopes will get lost over the weekend:
“David Ochal tendered his resignation effective today. . . . [He] served the Department of Aviation for eight years. As First Deputy Commissioner, he provided strong leadership and had oversight of management, planning, design, operation and maintenance of O’Hare and Midway International Airports.”
Don’t cry for Pool Boy. Daley will make sure he gets a six-figure pension at your expense.
I’m shocked City Hall didn’t credit my column, but Daley wasn’t too enthused with my work years ago, either, when I wrote about Ochal’s built-in pool, constructed without necessary permits. It swamped his neighbors’ yards, ruined their basements and blew out a ComEd transformer.
Pools are a status symbol among Northwest Side politicians, and Pool Boy’s, though not as fine as some, had cement so thick you could land three 757s on it. He said he paid for it, but the mayor ruled he didn’t have to show me the canceled checks.
Back then, Daley not only defended Pool Boy, but promoted him. Ochal also ran a patronage army for Daley, and had the gall to call it the Lakefront Independent Democratic Organization.
ComEd is continuing its investigation into Generator X, but a spokeswoman said no action has been taken against the power company foreman who was just following orders. If they do squeeze him unfairly, I’ll write about it.
Hoffman’s and ComEd’s investigations will likely proceed along similar paths, with phone records taken and workers interviewed.
And Ochal?
He’s like a salamander. Daley must keep Pool Boy moist and happy. He’s got to keep Ochal out of federal waters. He must find him another place to splash and play.
So in whose pool will Pool Boy begin to frolic now?
“When you hear people like Mayor Daley say that there’s a “trust issue” with Blagojevich, it’s because nothing he says can be believed — not even his favorite story about how Mike Madigan’s members fear losing their city jobs.”
Your assumptions that D’Amico can be trusted to speak the truth, ie., is not a liar, and, that Bradley can be trusted to speak the truth, ie., is not a liar, and, that Hannig can be trusted to speak the truth, ie., is not a liar, and, that Madigan can be trusted to speak the truth, ie., is not a liar, and, that the unnamed author of the entire article quoted can be trusted, ie., is not a liar, makes an ASS out of you.
“Do you understand a bit better now why it’s so darned difficult to…” believe ANYTHING that comes out of the mouth of Mike Madigan or out of the mouths of ANY of his underlings? The author of the quoted article included?