Clouted Judgement?

By Margaret Lyons in News on Nov 21, 2007 5:27PM

Using racist slurs and donning a tablecloth and pretending you're in the Klan won't get you fired from your City job. Joseph Annunzio, you're having the best, most inappropriate and offensive week ever! Congrats on retaining your $77K per year gig with the City's Department of Transportation. If the name "Annunzio" sounds familiar, it's because Joseph's uncle was 14-term Illinois Rep Frank Annunzio.

The HR review board decided that Annunzio did make "racist, derogatory and disparaging remarks"--11 of his coworkers testified to that--but that he didn't need to be fired because "the most 'egregious' allegations weren't backed up by testimony from the target of the barbs." Two of Annunzio's coworkers testified that they saw the tablecloth/Klan incident, and Annunzio's boss said he "lacked people skills."

Annunzio has denied these allegations since they were brought against him in April--by his former employee and Cook County Commissioner William Beavers's girlfriend, Patty Young. You remember Patty Young from earlier this fall, right? She was "hired Monday, gone Wednesday" from a job in the County's purchasing department after the Sun-Times started sniffing around about Stroger friends-and-family hires.