The South Side alderman had been charged with stealing charity donations to finance his daughter’s college tuition payments and casino getaways in Indiana, among other offences.
In what critics have decried as an inappropriate use of scarce public safety resources, Chicago police officials parked a “bait truck” reportedly filled with boxes of Nike sneakers in the city’s Englewood neighborhood.
Chicago and Illinois have plenty of their own problems on the manufacturing front, with issues such as high property taxes and workers’ compensation costs driving production facilities to other states. But U.S. trade policy regarding sugar isn’t helping matters. For each one sugar growing and harvesting job saved through high U.S. sugar tariffs, nearly three confectionery manufacturing jobs are lost, according to the International Trade Administration.
Several instances of corruption and mismanagement of public property and trust came to light in March and included new developments in cases involving Chicago Public Schools’ former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.