CHICAGO – Chicago residents now take a look inside Metropolis Corridor’s reward closet after an investigation by the Workplace of Inspector Normal (OIG) raised considerations about how mayoral items have been dealt with and reported.
The OIG report discovered that the Mayor’s Workplace accepted items, together with designer purses and jewellery, on behalf of the town with out publicly reporting them as required. As an alternative, below an unwritten coverage relationship again to the late Nineteen Eighties, items had been logged in a guide accessible for public viewing on the fifth flooring of Metropolis Corridor.
Nonetheless, the OIG stated these items ought to have been reported to the Board of Ethics and the town comptroller, with the stories made publicly accessible.
In response to the investigation, the Mayor’s Workplace on Wednesday launched a video and checklist of items acquired on behalf of the town.
The 22-second YouTube video shows numerous objects which were offered to the town of Chicago, and the complete stock is now accessible on the metropolis’s web site.
The backstory:
The OIG visited Metropolis Corridor undercover and requested to see the logbook. The Mayor’s Workplace denied the request and directed OIG officers to file a Freedom of Info Act (FOIA) request.
Inspector basic officers stated they filed a FOIA request in a “covert capability” and the Mayor’s Workplace failed to reply in a well timed method, reflecting a denial of the request.
The OIG then despatched an official doc request to the Mayor’s Workplace for the logbook and acquired a spreadsheet detailing 380 items accepted by the Mayor’s Workplace “on behalf of the town” between Feb. 2, 2022 and March 20, 2024. Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s logs included entries for 144 items acquired whereas Johnson’s logs contained 236 entries.
Among the many items given below the Johnson administration had been Hugo Boss cufflinks; Givenchy, Gucci, and Kate Spade purses; a personalised Mont Blanc pen; and dimension 14 males’s footwear, OIG officers stated. A number of the items had been saved within the reward room and the others had been in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s private workplace, the inspector stated.
The OIG visited the fifth flooring to conduct an unannounced inspection of the Present Room and was denied entry.
“When items are altering fingers—maybe actually—in a windowless room in Metropolis Corridor, there is no such thing as a alternative for oversight and public scrutiny of the propriety of such items, the identities or intentions of the gift-givers, or what it means for items like whiskey, jewellery, purses, and dimension 14 males’s footwear to be accepted ‘on behalf of the Metropolis,’” stated Deborah Witzburg, inspector basic for the Metropolis of Chicago.
Underneath the Governmental Ethics Ordinance, metropolis officers are usually prohibited from accepting items of worth over $50 until they’re “accepted on behalf of the town.”
Many of the entries didn’t disclose the gift-givers.
What’s subsequent:
In case you’d prefer to view the reward closet and log, click on right here.
The Supply: The data on this article got here from the mayor’s workplace and former FOX 32 protection.
