Mayor Richard M. Daley often asserts that he is as transparent as any other big-city leader. But testimony in federal court makes it clear that there are times that his answers to questions, or refusal to answer, can leave the public in the dark.
The latest example came in the corruption trial of Calvin Boender, a politically connected real estate developer who on Thursday was found guilty of bribing then-Alderman Isaac Carothers (29th Ward) to back Mr. Boender’s West Side land deal.
In news conferences over two days in October 2008, the mayor refused to comment on disclosures that Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, Democrat of Illinois, had met with the mayor to help advance Mr. Boender’s development plan. Jacquelyn Heard, the mayor’s press secretary, ultimately sent reporters an e-mail message saying that neither Mr. Daley nor his aides “can recall him meeting with the congressman on this project or anything else except for the city’s legislative agenda” in Washington.
Fast forward to the Boender trial. A former city planning commissioner testified that Mr. Daley met with Mr. Gutierrez and Mr. Boender about the developer’s project, prompting mayoral aides to acknowledge that evidence of the meeting also appeared on the mayor’s personal calendar. City officials confirmed last week that federal investigators had questioned Mr. Daley about the meeting in March 2008, months before he dodged reporters’ questions.
The case reminded some City Hall observers of the mayor’s denials of any connection to the scandal-plagued Hispanic Democratic Organization. Only when Al Sanchez, a former mayoral aide, stood trial on corruption charges last year — for rigging city hiring in favor of Hispanic organization members who campaigned for Mr. Daley and for candidates endorsed by him — did a 1993 fund-raising letter surface describing “the main purpose” of the Hispanic group as helping to improve the mayor’s political fortunes.
This reminds me of how big oil and energy companies got to meet in secret with Vice President Cheney before the invasion of Iraq, and how difficult it proved to track down the influence they had on US energy and foreign policy. It seems the current Whitehouse’s open events calendar that allows the public to see who has visited the Whitehouse is a major, if incomplete, improval in transparency. Perhaps a similar step would be helpful for the public to hold Mayor Daley accountable for his extensive executive power in the city.
Gutierrez is HDO.