That Metra, the commuter rail system that serves the greater
Chicagoland area, is turning out to be a snake pit of corruption should
surprise no one who is not as naïve as its former chairman, Alex Clifford. (See my 7/16/13 post, WE ARE SHOCKED…SHOCKED!...TO LEARN OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE AT METRA and the posts to which it will refer
you.) However, Mr. Clifford’s testimony
before the board of the Regional Transportation Authority (“RTA”), which, er,
“oversees” Metra, continues to rivet those of us who follow, and pay for, the
shenanigans of Metra and its kindred entities.
What is drawing the most attention, and perhaps deservedly so, is Mr.
Clifford’s contention that Illinois House Speaker, Democratic Chairman, and
former first dad-in-waiting Mike Madigan displayed “an ethical and moral
character flaw” in trying to indirectly muscle Mr. Clifford into increasing the
pay of one of Mr. Madigan’s minions and hiring another hanger-on.
A minor point of digression here; is it my imagination, or
does Mr. Madigan bear more than a passing resemblance to the current, aging
Clint Eastwood?
The “ethical and moral flaw” comment provides plenty of
grist for another mill on the moral outlook of people operating in a world of evolving
ethics who continue to do what they were brought up to believe was morally
acceptable. Further, those of us who
have followed Chicago politics for
a long time are, or ought to be, dumbstruck by the thought that what not that
long ago would have been considered Mr. Madigan’s going to bat for a loyal
political soldier has generated such handwringing, if not outright
vitriol. Not even Mr. Clifford is
contending that Mr. Madigan did anything illegal, even by today’s
standards. Yet people are calling for
Mr. Madigan’s head in l’affaire
Metra. Good luck with that one. I’m not defending Mr. Madigan here; times
have indeed changed. But Richard J.
Daley must be rolling over in his grave, or expressing shock to the legions of
precinct captains in the sky. I can
almost hear the old man now…
“What kind of world do
we live in when a nice neighborhood guy like young Mikey Madigan can’t help out
a neighbor and a friend who’s trying to
feed his family? Saints preserve us!”
A further point on this particular digression…
The real scandal within the scandal surrounding Mr.
Madigan’s efforts to get his minion Pat Ward a pay increase is the near
brobdingnagian amounts of spondulicks Mr. Ward provided to campaign funds
controlled by Mike Madigan and/or supporting Lisa Madigan’s erstwhile bids for
higher office. Reportedly, Mr. Ward has
donated north of $15,000 to such causes.
That might not sound like a lot of money in the world of modern
political pay to play, but Mr. Ward’s salary at Metra was only $57,000. Even spread out over several years, $15,000
is a lot of dough for a guy making that kind of money to be giving away. One doesn’t have to be overly cynical to look
at this arrangement as a too thinly veiled kickback scheme. While I haven’t read or heard anyone else
bringing this up, perhaps people jaded by years of considering such things just
assumed such a scheme was in place and, indeed, is usually in place with public
employment in and around the city of Chicago .
Digressions aside, one of the items that jumped out at me as
I read of this sad yet tantalizing affair is the $200,000 contract Metra, under
then CEO Phil Pagano, awarded to the Target Group. Target is owned by Joe Williams, who is a
partner of Metra Board member Larry Huggins in a separate real estate
development company. The Target Group received the $200,000, according to the Chicago
Tribune, to “recruit minority bidders for the Englewood
flyover” (emphasis mine), a $93 million railroad bridge on the south side. According to the Chicago
Sun-Times, the Target contract was to
“certify African-American
contractors to work” (emphasis mine) on the flyover.
I certainly hope that the Sun-Times is right and that Target was hired to certify, rather
than recruit, minority contractors. Why
in the world would you have to recruit minority bidders on contracts set aside
for minorities? It would seem that if
Metra is setting aside contract money specifically for minority contractors,
and one were an ambitious minority contractor who was always on the outlook for
more business, one wouldn’t have to be recruited to take the government’s
money. If contractors had to
actually be recruited, persuaded, or cajoled into taking the work, perhaps
those contractors are not the people who should be doing the work. Wouldn’t the taxpayers be better served by
contractors, minority or otherwise, who would actually make the effort to seek
the work than by contractors who had to be talked into it? Not that long ago, such logic would be
considered common sense…but our country has gone crazy over the last 20 or 30
or so years.
Certifying, rather than recruiting, minority contracts makes
sense, especially in Chicago in which politically connected white guys have for
years set up phony minority front companies in order to win contracts set aside
for blacks, women, Hispanics, etc.
Certification, therefore, is important, though one wonders why it can’t
be done for less than $200 grand. In
this case, the work must have been particularly onerous, because the project
ran $70 grand over budget and, according to Mr. Clifford, he was harassed by
Mr. Huggins with calls asking why the checks were late.
The “certification” vs. “recruitment” debate is, in all
likelihood, moot because the $200,000, rather than being for either minority certification
or recruitment, was probably just another instance in which politically connected
people were paid taxpayer money to do little if anything. So it goes in these parts. The same could be said for the $50,000 that
Metra was supposed to pay to the National Black Chamber of Commerce to “monitor”
a memorandum of understanding regarding black subcontracting on the Flyover,
money that Mr. Clifford ultimately nixed by demanding approval by entire
board. Not even the lackey laden but
shame bereft Metra Board would go along with such a scam.
All these shenanigans at Metra are very entertaining, but
the entertainment our pols provide has long passed the point at which it got
too expensive. People are fed up. Talk among people who have spent their whole lives
here now often turns to places to which we would move. That’s too bad; other than the machinations
of our pols, Chicago and its
environs is a terrific place in which to live.
See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of
Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge,
A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on
how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.
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