In 2004
The Chicago Sun-Times unleashed one the biggest scandals to hit Chicago:
With no more than a handshake, Mayor Daley's administration spends nearly $40 million a year hiring hundreds of trucks -- primarily dump trucks -- that often do little or no work, a Sun-Times investigation has found.
The city has a list of about 165 favorite truck companies to send to city work sites. Some owners have political clout, some are mob figures or their relatives.
More than a
few people went down. What's amazing is that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald didn't seem too bothered by Chicago Mob linked Alderman Ed Burke and his right hand man Pete Andrews. Here's
The Chicago Sun-Times:
Ald. Edward Burke's top political aide was running a trucking company in the name of his wife and another woman to get work as a woman-owned firm under the city's scandal-ridden Hired Truck Program, Mayor Daley's inspector general has concluded.
Inspector General Alexander Vroustouris is recommending that the company, Base Trucking, be stripped of its favored status as a woman-owned business and barred from the program.
The inspector general's findings directly contradict assertions by Burke earlier this year when the Chicago Sun-Times first wrote about Base Trucking. Burke then insisted the company was run by the wives of his political right-hand man, Peter J. Andrews, and Andrews' business partner, John McGuire.
Vroustouris is suggesting the regulatory equivalent of the death penalty for Base Trucking after several Base employees told his investigators that the company was run by the husbands.
Alderman Burke has been
handing out the money in Chicago for decades but neither he or Pete Andrews got indicted in the Hired Truck scandal.
