Is this an Onion story? No.
The Chicago Tribune reports:
Coming from as far away as Azerbaijan, dozens of corporate executives and government bureaucrats gathered at a downtown hotel Wednesday to hear Mayor Richard Daley share his tips for preventing corruption.
Absent from his speech at the international event was any talk of city hiring fraud, the Hired Truck program or the myriad other scandals that put Daley aides in federal prison or left them free pending appeals of official misconduct convictions.
A day after yet another city contractor became the target of fraud charges, Daley instead focused his comments on how he has tried to "lead by example," creating an Office of Compliance to coax ethical public service from his underlings.
The mayor didn't mention, however, that he started the office in response to a federal probe of a hiring and promotions system that was found to be rigged to reward loyal Daley campaign workers for most of his tenure.
How many cities do you know of where the Water department is accused by the federal government of being a
racketeering enterprise? or as
The Chicago Sun-Times reported in February 11, 2004:
Mayor Daley's Water Department operated as a "racketeering enterprise," raking in more than $500,000 in bribes for at least a decade, a federal grand jury charged Thursday, greatly expanding the Hired Truck investigation.
Mayor Daley sure knows about corruption.
