The City of Chicago Department of Water Management has a great important duty, to provide safe drinking water. Part of the job is making sure all employees are trained to look out for dangerous situations that could leave Chicagoans with an un-protected water system. Today while investigating a home on the 1100 block of Menard, We found a contractor hooked up to a fire hydrant and dug up a front lawn to connect to a (B-box) Shut off valve in the parkway. I asked the contractor what they were doing and they said, “They took it upon themselves to locate a leak”. The contractor had no permission to work on this supply piping. The leak desk was not aware of their presence. When I took pictures, they quickly drove away. The card they gave me had the name William Doyle a Field Technician for ADS and IDEX companies, I recall this company with nice contracts and good connections with the Chicago Water Department. Last time I saw them, a worker was sleeping on the job. I informed the leak desk, the Inspector General, Plumbers Local 130 Union, and the Laborers 1092 Union. It really takes some balls (for lack of a better word) to touch a Municipal Water System with no permission and no Plumber’s License. Of course, if these guys get hooked up with the right goons from the Plumber’s Union, they can “get” a Plumber’s License. I also touched again with Robert Walsh of the Plumbers Union regarding the use of unlicensed Investigators, this practice must stop. It must stop and not by illegally giving Plumbing Licenses away to people that drop money or do politics. Protect your job Chicago Union Workers. Patrick McDonough
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2 city workers charged in park drug deal
HUMBOLDT PARK | Firefighter, Water Dept. worker accused of cocaine transaction
February 17, 2009
BY FRAN SPIELMAN AND ANNIE SWEENEY Staff Reporters
A 62-year-old Chicago firefighter has been charged with selling cocaine to a worker in the Department of Water Management, which was at the center of a 2005 heroin-trafficking scandal.
Fire engineer Ruben Santiago has been placed on an unpaid leave of absence after being charged Thursday with manufacture, delivery and possession of more than 15 grams of cocaine.
Waldemar Cruz, a 63-year-old Water Management rate taker who allegedly bought drugs from Santiago, was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance. His employment status was not known.
The alleged drug deal between two city employees in their 60s allegedly took place in the inner drive of Humboldt Park.
Officers from the Chicago Police Department’s gang enforcement unit conducting surveillance in response to complaints of narcotics sales in Humboldt Park reportedly observed the hand-to-hand transaction.
After the 2 p.m. street sale, Santiago allegedly got into his personal vehicle and threw drugs on the ground after being stopped by police. Cruz was also driving his personal car, sources said.
“At this time, there is no indication that anything illegal was done on city time. However, the conduct alleged clearly violates the oath taken to protect life,” said Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.
In 2005, a Water Management hoisting engineer who served as a deputy voter registrar for the Hispanic Democratic Organization was accused of heading the Chicago arm of a Colombia heroin-trafficking ring. George A. Prado was arrested along with two other city employees.
Santiago’s arrest marks the latest in a series of black eyes for the Chicago Fire Department.
In December, firefighter Jose Moreno was charged with sexually molesting three young children, including a 3-year-old girl and two boys, ages 5 and 6. He was hired to be their caretaker three or four times a week.
Two weeks later, another firefighter was charged with fraud and forgery; he allegedly stole natural gas after the heat was cut off at his home.
Chicago firefighters and paramedics are subject to random drug testing that traditionally yields a 1 percent positive rate, “which is good,” Langford said.
99% of the people reading this blog complain about the city but yet they vote for most of these crooked Democrats in this city. Just answer this simple question: If Republicans were in office in the city would we be having our parking meters going up ten fold and would we have to feed these meters in the middle of the night and would corruption in this city be as bad as it is now? And to many of you the republicans are evil. I am more conservative but am very comfortable with Pat Quinn in as governor. He may be a tax and spend liberal but he seems to be very honest and not corrupt. Mike Quigley is a good one too along with Forest Claypool. But if Mike Quigley gets his ego involved to get the 5th district seat, if he gets Daleys nod and kisses his butt for it, he too can change and begin defending Daley for it. Will Quigley remain true is the main question. Paul Vallas would also make a fine president of the county board. I do not care if Vallas runs as a Republican, he too is a Democrat.
Anything on the Chicago Park District?
(Response) Yes, I am going to wait until Gerald Sullivan retires, than we will have fun for everyone. Gerald Sullivan has done a lot for Chicago, the Plumber’s Union and the Park District. Gerald Sullivan is a man’s man.
When is the class action lawsuit going to be filed against the city state and county. Home values continue to plummet but yet taxes are still rising like smoke in a chimney. When is the key word here, when..when …when are taxes going to be lowered? …when…when
(Response) You got me. We will keep putting them in jail in the meanwhile.
We are sooooo screwed. I can’t believe the intrusiveness on our lives that government is doing to us. in our pockets and they do want to track our every move. And guess what, I bet through our cell phones they already do and we don’t even know about it. This Obama is a big radical. Wait till he gives 12,000,000 Mexicans illegals the citizenship so they can vote for him in 4 years. This is gonna get very scary these next 4 years. Very very scary!
Why doesn’t Rahm Emanuel pay property taxes on his Chicago residence?
According to the Cook County Assessor’s website, the Chicago home of four-term Democrat Congressman and new White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, doesn’t exist.
While the address of 4228 North Hermitage is listed as Emanuel’s residence on the Illinois State Board of Elections’ website, there seems to be no public record of Emanuel ever paying property taxes on this home.
The Cook County Assessor’s and Cook County Treasurer’s online records indicate Emanuel’s Chicago neighbors pay between $3,500 and $7,000 annually. However, Illinois Review has been unable to locate any evidence that the former Clinton advisor and investment banker is paying his fair share of Cook County’s notoriously high tax burden.
Why wouldn’t 4228 North Hermitage property owners Rahm Emanuel and wife Amy Rule pay property taxes??? This might be why…
One reason may be because Emanuel and Rule declared their 4228 North Hermitage home as the office location for their personal non-profit foundation called the “Rahm Emanuel and Amy Rule Charitable Foundation”. As the non-profit’s headquarters, their home could be exempt from paying property taxes.
In January 2007, USA Today reported on Emanuel’s foundation:
The Rahm Emanuel and Amy Rule Charitable Trust was formed in 2002, when the Chicago lawmaker was first elected. The former Clinton White House aide and his wife, Amy Rule, are its only donors. Emanuel was an investment banker after serving in the White House.
The trust reported having $2,900 on hand at the end of 2005 after receiving $34,000 from Emanuel and donating more than $31,000
During the past three years, Emanuel’s charity gave nearly $25,000 to the Anshe Emet synagogue and school [a private school that the Rahm/Rule children attend]…, and $15,000 to the foundation run by former president Bill Clinton. It also gave $14,000 to Marwen, a Chicago charity that provides art classes and other educational help to low-income children. Rule is on Marwen’s board.
THE SENDER OF THIS E-MAIL WRITES:
He doesn’t pay any property taxes and he gets income tax write-offs by donating $25000 to the Synagogue
and other amounts of money to his Foundation. This allows his kids to attend school tuition-free
and allows him to expense a lot of personal expenses. What a racket!
Take all your income and donate it back to yourself via tax exempt orgs where you can spend it on as
expenses to operate your car, pay the electric and water bills, etc.
I guess if you are a hypocritical “liberal” democrat who advocates raising taxes on everyone else, this is all permissible.
Emanuel’s 4228 North Hermitage home is one of the largest in the neighborhood, with a side yard that appears to be a vacant lot, making the Emanuels’ property the largest portion on the block.
Other North Hermitage homes on Emanuel’s block are valued in the $500,000 plus range. According to Cook County Treasurer’s website, the Chicago owners of nearby 118year old 4222 North Hermitage pay almost $6800 annually. The family at 4224 North Heritage pays $6000 each year in property taxes.
President Obama – himself a connected, Chicago insider who has benefited from questionable land deals – may find it difficult to explain why his very own Chicago-based chief of staff doesn’t pay property taxes like the “little guy” he claims to represent. Or perhaps allowing his wealthy friends to avoid taxes is part of Obama’s trickle down redistribution economics. It’s certainly the kind of “change” we Illinoisans can believe in…since we’re quite familiar with it here in the federal indictment land of Daley, Blagojevich, Madigan, Jones, Cellini, Rezko, etc.
The last post about Emmanual’s property taxes is complete B.S.