Streets and San Boss Demoted After Flood

By Prescott Carlson in News on Jan 20, 2009 8:20PM

Chicago Streets and Sanitation superintendent Jeff Oakley has been suspended without pay and was demoted from his $100k+ per year gig after he was accused of leaving his office window open at the Bureau of Electricity headquarters the weekend before Christmas. As you might remember, it was really "freaking cold" that weekend and a water pipe froze and burst causing an estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars in flood damage. Oakley called the damage an "embarrassment" to the bureau and Mayor Daley, but denies having left the window open speculating that perhaps strong winds blew it ajar. The Sun-Times also helps float the idea that it may have been racially motivated:

Oakley, who is African-American and oversees a bureau known as a white bastion, noted that the incident occurred on a Sunday, when he wasn't at work. "You've got a lot of evil people in this world," he said. "I don't know if somebody was trying to set me up."