Daley On Rezko Sham Minority Business Front

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Mayor Daley said Thursday he has no idea who dropped the ball, but this much is clear: an African-American businessman accused this week of being a "front" for Panda Express and Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a top fund-raiser for Gov. Blagojevich, should have been stripped of his minority business certification years ago.

"They should have done the same thing three years ago that they did now," the mayor said.

Daley was reacting to a Chicago Sun-Times report about Jabir Herbert Muhammad, an African-American businessman who admitted to a city compliance officer in 2002 that he was not running day-to-day operations of two Panda Express restaurants at O'Hare as required by the city. Muhammad's company, Crucial Inc., won the O'Hare concessions in part because it was certified as a minority-owned firm.

Muhammad owns 55 percent of Crucial while Rezko owns 45 percent. Yet Muhammad told the compliance officer that Rezko handled most of the business. The officer concluded that Muhammad "seems to be a front" used by Panda Express to open businesses at O'Hare -- but no action was taken by the city until this week.

Tough questions

Daley was hard-pressed to explain why the July 31, 2002, report by the compliance officer was ignored -- and attempted to shift the focus to former Chief Procurement Officer David Malone.

Asked why his administration waited until this week to take action against Crucial, the mayor said, "Well, I don't know. You talked to Malone yesterday. I don't know. They should always look at compliance officers' site visit reports. It's hard to determine" who dropped the ball.

No word yet from Alderman Burke on this one.