Farewell Frank Coconate
I met Frank at his house in Edison Park. He would exercise in the basement regularly. He also had a tiny toupee on his styrofoam head. Frank was one of the best family men who worked for the City of Chicago. Frank was very successful until he went up against Mayor Daley. He was attempting to improve the working conditions of city workers. Frank had a fundraiser for all city workers to attend. Jesse Jackson Jr. was the featured speaker. I have a video of Jesse Jackson Jr.’s speech. Frank Coconate gave a tremendous, rousing speech. Many Chicago city workers attended this rally and started changing opinions of Richard Daley. Daley needed to work harder and show more appreciation for union workers.
Frank Coconate had an innovative blog and was far ahead of everyone at that time. The blog was used to expose Chicago City Workers getting political promotions. The blog was also used to catch up on gossip with city workers and to grab a little attention for Frank Coconate and his political ideas. Franco Coconate used the blog to establish his credibility and political attention-getting. During Frank’s blog monitoring, I posted many things about Mayor Daley’s son, Patrick, and exposed him as a political operative making money off the family name. Frank was distraught because he didn’t want any family attacks. Later, it was exposed that Patrick Daley was making money with other people in business deals with the City of Chicago.
Frank Coconate did an excellent job exposing the rainblocker program. Frank Coconate understood that the rain blocker program was a complete and total waste of taxpayer money. The rain blocker program was used to slow down the amount of water going into the city’s sewer system, but most people didn’t know that the rain blockers were torn out by the hoisting engineers working for the Sewer Department. In the central district, hundreds of the rain blockers piled up and unused. The rainblockers appeared to be a scam program from the very get-go. It was nowhere near as significant as the Hired Truck Program, but it showed Frank Coconate ability to blow the whistle.
Frank Coconate was a safety specialist at the Department of Water Management. Frank was ordered not to write up specific crews that failed to use proper shoring and safety protocols. Frank also should have realized that the safety specialist was a political promotion for laborers, and it was a significant pay raise even though the responsibility of the job was minimal.
Many of the safety specialists went home for lunch. Frank would also work out for a few extra minutes, which was not bad. Frank had a workout room in his basement and took a lot of pride in his appearance. Frank didn’t seem to understand that going after Mayor Daley and the rain blacker program was a death sentence in the city. The City of Chicago has a whistleblower program that’s supposed to expose corruption by the Inspector General, but the Inspector General has been and currently is useless.
Frank was notified by a certified letter, left by his front door, as the water department was doing everything possible to terminate him. Frank finally went to his hearing, and sadly, Frank went a little overboard with the political aspect of why the city retaliated against him. He didn’t concentrate enough on proving his case. Many Chicago Human Resources Department hearing officers are told how they will decide on these cases.
Frank was the original gangster at getting media attention. He was excellent at it. The Chicago media machine used much of Frank’s research information, tips, and info to sell newspapers. A lot of people were very interested in the gossip that was going on at the Water department. Sadly, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sometimes have completely stopped reporting these things, and corruption is flourishing again like never before. So Frank Coconate, with his whistle-blowing, served an important service to the Chicago taxpayers.
Frank Coconate truly loved his family dearly, his wife and his kids, and would fight to the end for them. I am not 100% positive of the cause of why Frank died so young, but I certainly think that the main reason would have been decisions he made as a young man at the party circuits. Frank got the shaft from this city, which was direct retaliation from Mayor Daley.
In the future, someone must step up and continue to blow the whistle on the corruption at the Department of Water Management. The problem is that doing so is almost a death sentence and a guarantee of vicious retaliation. I wish Frank only the best and hope he left his family in a good state. I do think the city of Chicago owes him an enormous debt of gratitude, and trying to call him a gadfly or some political garbage name is entirely inappropriate. I do know that Frank loved being in the paper, and he loved having a nice quote so his name was active. But I believe after he got fired from the City of Chicago, his continuing attempt to get attention in the media ruined his chances of having a good life. Frank lost his pension with the city, saying he could pay his immediate debts, but that was a terrible decision he received from his attorney.
I want to thank Frank as he introduced me to Jesse Jackson Sr. in Chicago. We took some beautiful pictures, and Jesse Jackson Sr was very gracious. It was my opinion that Frank was way ahead of his time because he saw the clout that the black community had. He saw the future and those decisions he paid dearly for. I do believe Frank is just somewhere up in heaven looking down, going crazy, wondering who’s gonna take over to continue his legacy. Frank was very proud of being Italian, and he seemed disgusted with the way the City of Chicago is currently treating white people. This was due to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s outrageous racism.