Will Other Chicago Aldermen Linked to Danny Solis Be Making Headlines By The End of The Year? Aldermen got loans from bank led by lawyer, OK’d his clients’ projects

Are some Chicago Aldermen who have been members of Chicago's Zoning Committee going to make headlines in 2019? Just the other day the Chicago Sun-Times reported:

Ald. Danny Solis wanted lawyer and political power broker Victor Reyes to help raise money for him, but Reyes had a complaint, according to a transcript of an August 2015 cellphone call between the men secretly recorded by the FBI.

Reyes said four other aldermen — George Cardenas (12th), Roberto Maldonado (26th), Proco Joe Moreno (1st) and Rick Munoz (22nd) — had referred him business. But Reyes griped that Solis, then the powerful chairman of the City Council’s Zoning Committee, had given him nothing.

The Chicago Sun-Times has a very revealing article from July of 2017 (which might become rather important in 2019):

While backing plans to build condos in their wards, two aldermen representing Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Wicker Park and other booming neighborhoods got loans from a bank headed by the lawyer for the developers, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.

Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th) and Ald. Proco Joe Moreno (1st) each has gotten mortgages from Belmont Bank & Trust, according to a Sun-Times’ review of the more than 1,200 mortgages that the small, Northwest Side bank has made since it opened 11 years ago.



Maldonado’s loans totaled nearly $1 million, Moreno’s $885,000, according to records and interviews.

The chairman of the bank? James Banks, who’s also one of the city’s busiest zoning and development lawyers. He is the largest shareholder in Belmont Bank, according to records it filed with the Federal Reserve Bank.

Since becoming loan customers of Belmont Bank, Maldonado and Moreno each has voted on more than 200 zoning cases involving Banks’ law firm, including dozens of projects in their wards. They have never abstained from voting on any case involving Banks or his firm, city records show.

There's more:

Like all Chicago aldermen, Maldonado and Moreno have the power to block any zoning changes in their wards. Once approved, the rest of the City Council typically goes along.

One of every five zoning changes Banks has won from the Chicago City Council the past five years involved property in either Moreno’s 1st Ward or Maldonado’s 26th Ward. The council approved each of them without opposition from any of the 50 aldermen.


Since Moreno got a one-year line of credit and a five-year mortgage from Belmont Bank in 2013, Banks has won 43 zoning cases in Moreno’s ward — more than in any other ward.

Moreno — who landed a seat last year on the City Council zoning committee, which hears Banks’ clients’ zoning cases — says he had no reason to abstain from zoning cases involving the lawyer who’s also chairman of the bank that held two mortgages on his home.

We are quite sure the FBI has heard of some of the people who've made it to the top of Belmont Bank & Trust.