Clout Causes a Kerfuffle in City Hall

By Kevin Robinson in News on Mar 30, 2010 2:00PM

In the ongoing power struggle to shift authority over hiring to the city's Inspector General, Anthony Boswell, Mayor Daley's chief ethics officer, has resigned from his post in the city's Office of Compliance. Boswell has been at the center of controversy in that department since the mayor suspended him for 30 days for mishandling a sexual harassment complaint involving a manager at the city's 911 center. Boswell is suing Daley and the city's IG in Cook County court. He alleges that Daley overstepped his authority by suspending him, and claims that the inspector general and Chicago's corporation council Mara Georges are retaliating against him for questioning her attempt to hire and promote her predecessor's unqualified daughter. “I uprooted my family from Dallas, Texas in order to accept a position with the City, with the implicit promise that the City was serious about having a best-in-class compliance program,” Boswell wrote in his resignation letter to Daley. “Given recent events, it has become difficult for me to remain excited about the work of the Office of Compliance.”

Boswell's name was also on a list of clouted names linked to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, that sought special favor to get children of connected Chicagoans into elite Chicago Public Schools, circumventing waiting lists. Daley's nephew Patrick Daley Thompson is also linked to that list, after he contacted CPS officials on behalf of a politically connected neighbor's daughters. The Mayor has said that it was "unacceptable" for Thompson to contact school officials, but he also said there was nothing wrong with it. Huh? "Again, the VIP list, there's a lot of frustration, and that's why (Chicago Board of Education President) Mary Richardson-Lowry is putting up a, creating a structure where people complain, 'I can't get my son or daughter into a school,' they can go right to a formal hearing," Daley said at a news conference."You need a process. And you have a process, anyone can call, anyone can go to a hearing and say 'I've been denied, I want to know why. Give me the reason why.'" Clearly that process is the same as the mayor's nephew interceding on your behalf.