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A former city Water Department superintendent used his work email to distribute anti-Obama polemics, with some of his messages veering off into racially insensitive, anti-Islamic and sexist territory, documents obtained by the Tribune show.
Hal Dardick Contact Reporter

A former city Water Department superintendent used his work email to distribute anti-Obama polemics, with some of his messages veering off into racially insensitive, anti-Islamic and sexist territory, documents obtained by the Tribune show.

Some of the emails were sent to former water Commissioner Barrett Murphy and former Managing Deputy Commissioner William Bresnahan, according to the documents.

Both resigned last month amid a Department of Water Management shakeup that sources said was triggered by an inspector general’s investigation into racist and sexist email messages distributed within the long-troubled agency. District Superintendent Paul Hansen, of 7208 West Olive Avenue, who sent the messages, also resigned.

A man who identified himself over the phone as Hansen hung up Friday on a Tribune reporter trying to ask questions about the emails. Attempts to reach Murphy and Bresnahan were not successful.

The emails reviewed by the Tribune were provided by the city in response to an open records request. They are just some of the allegedly racist and sexist messages that are part of the investigation, a source familiar with the matter said.

A message sent by Hansen to Murphy and Bresnahan in March 2014 includes a missive penned by “an American citizen” in response to an imprecisely quoted statement by then-President Barack Obama that “Islam has always been a part of America’s history.”

It goes on to falsely contend that Muslims played no role in several significant historical events, including the Civil War and the civil rights era, and conclude: “Muslim Heritage, my ass.”

Gun deal emails spurred city probe into racist, sexist Water Department messages
In January 2014, Hansen sent a message first to Murphy and minutes later to Bresnahan about checking a water fountain on the 2700 block of Irving Park Road, the site of Horner Park.

“Got a call from an asian carp calling from his obama issued aquaphone tellin me it taste funny!” Hansen wrote.

Hansen that same month also forwarded to Murphy a series of images of anti-Obama signs the email says were posted along a highway in Seattle. In November 2015, Hansen and other supervisors circulated a lengthy, profanity-laced anti-Obama joke among one another.

In a February 2014 email, Hansen uses sexist language as he makes fun of a colleague in response to a lengthy message he sent to Hansen about a frozen water main. “After all that long winded jib jab that i could get plenty of at home with the kotex mafia, you going back!” Hansen wrote.

Hansen also was the recipient of a March 2014 email that linked to an online video showing several Kenyans unsuccessfully trying to fly an aircraft they had built. “They are human beings. Just like us! Only 100 years later,” reads a message in bold above the link. That message also was received by a department foreman.

Hours after the city released the emails to the Tribune, new water Commissioner Randy Conner announced that all managers and supervisors in his department would be provided with additional training on federal Equal Employment Opportunity regulations designed to prevent discrimination in the workplace.

City officials also said that additional training for other city departments would follow and that the city was hiring the Foley & Lardner law firm “to conduct an independent, third-party review of the city’s diversity and equal employment opportunity policy and make recommendations to prevent and address discrimination in the workplace.”

The probe that led to the resignations of Murphy, Bresnahan and Hansen began more than eight months ago.

Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s office was looking into water department emails about gun deals when it discovered sexist and racist emails, sources have told the Tribune. Hansen’s computer was seized as part of the investigation, the sources said.

Murphy, the former commissioner, is married to Lynn Lockwood, who at one time was chairman and treasurer of one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s political funds and is a friend of Chicago first lady Amy Rule.

Emanuel last month said he was made aware by Ferguson’s office of a problem with “one particular employee” and “in that process, it exposed a culture in the Water Department workplace” that doesn’t represent city values.

He also said that Murphy agreed after the emails surfaced that there should be a reset in the culture of the agency, now headed by Conner, who moved over from the city Department of Transportation.

Hansen has his own political connections. He’s the son of former 44th Ward Ald. Bernard Hansen.

The Water Department was long rattled by negative headlines under former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration, which was rocked by the Hired Truck scandal and an illegal jobs scam run under former top water official Donald Tomczak, who served time in prison.

Under Tomczak, jobs and promotions were handed out in exchange for political work, creating an army of ground troops for multiple political campaigns, including Emanuel’s successful 2002 bid for Congress.

Chicago Tribune’s Todd Lighty contributed.

hdardick@chicagotribune.com