Mayor Brandon Johnson vowed Tuesday to shine the sunshine on items the mayor has accepted “on behalf of the town” in hopes of placing to relaxation the controversy brought on by his secretive dealing with of the objects.
Inspector Normal Deborah Witzburg has accused the mayor of accepting helpful items — together with jewellery, alcohol, AirPods, designer purses and measurement 14 males’s footwear — and failing to report these items whereas denying inside investigators entry to the room the place the objects are purportedly saved.
Maybe most troubling to the inspector normal was how tough it was to safe the knowledge, which is meant to be promptly reported to the Chicago Board of Ethics and the town comptroller so the objects might be added to the stock of metropolis property.
Johnson has accused Witzburg of a “mischaracterization” whereas insisting he has by no means personally benefited from any items. However he’s apparently decided to place to relaxation the unflattering picture the inspector normal’s investigation created.
The brand new gift-handling coverage outlined by Company Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry is aimed toward doing simply that.
Beginning subsequent week, logs of the items Johnson receives from visiting dignitaries and the general public shall be meticulously maintained and posted on the town’s web site, together with a video of the “reward room” within the mayor’s Metropolis Corridor workplace the place these objects are saved.
When the mayor receives a present at a public look, the merchandise shall be introduced again to Metropolis Corridor instantly and documented within the public log.
The log or reward record will embrace an outline of the merchandise and the title of the particular person or group that gave the reward. That features “giant footage and artistic endeavors,” the company counsel stated.
Mayoral aides who obtain items on the mayor’s behalf at public occasions will make it a degree request the giver’s title.
In the event that they don’t get a reputation, the donor shall be categorized as “unknown” or “not knowable,” the company counsel stated.
Perishable objects like meals or flowers shall be “re-distributed.”
“I can’t wait to see this [gift] room myself,” Johnson stated Tuesday. “I’ve by no means seen it. I’ll be on-line clicking” on the video.
Johnson defended his resolution to disclaim inside investigators entry to the reward room.
“You may’t simply come to the fifth ground demanding to roam the fifth ground. The FBI can’t do this,” the mayor stated.
Witzburg strongly disagreed.
“I learn the regulation to be very clear on the duty of metropolis and elected officers to cooperate with” the Workplace of Inspector Normal, she stated.
Witzburg referred to as the brand new process outlined Tuesday a marked “enchancment in transparency and accountability” however stated it received’t remove the necessity for oversight.
“We can’t count on folks to take Metropolis Corridor at its phrase. I’ll proceed to think about unannounced inspections beneath acceptable situations an essential [aspect of] accountability,” she stated.
Richardson-Lowry stayed out of the back-and-forth between the mayor and the inspector normal.
She merely stated the purpose of the brand new process was to “take just a little of this bluster out of the air and be centered on, what would be the process that we’re utilizing going ahead,” figuring out that the gift-giving will proceed.
“Each mayor receives items from individuals who go to, dignitaries who go to from different international locations, people who find themselves in communities who consider they must acknowledge the mayor for his good work by giving them items,” Richardson-Lowry stated. “We’re gonna make it possible for now we have a course of that acknowledges the date that it got here in on, to the extent that we all know who gave it and their affiliation.
“The general public has a proper to see the items each mayor receives.”
Witzburg discovered each mayor since Eugene Sawyer within the late Nineteen Eighties has been exempt from these guidelines, based mostly on an off-the-cuff settlement with the Board of Ethics that has by no means been put into regulation. And her undercover investigators had been denied entry to the official reward log.
Richardson-Lowry, who served as Daley’s buildings commissioner, was a witness to that historical past.
“The log process … dates again to Mayor Sawyer. Mayor Daley had a model of that. Mayor Rahm [Emanuel, Mayor [Lori] Lightfoot, Mayor Johnson will proceed with that idea, however we’re gonna finest it and transfer it additional to make it obtainable for the general public to see with a video of the house so that everybody has entry to see the sorts of issues which might be obtained by each mayor — any mayor — after they’re within the function,” Richardson-Lowry stated.
