Three Firms With Hired Truck Ties Received Blizzaster Snow Removal Contracts

By Chuck Sudo in News on Feb 15, 2011 2:30PM

The city may have abolished the Hired Truck Program six years ago, but its legacy will always be invoked every time something happens to remind us of it. Events like, oh, Blizzaster 2011. The Sun-Times reports that three companies with ties to the Hired Truck Scandal were among those receiving the $8 million in emergency snow removal contracts that were doled out by the city.

G.G. Connections Inc. of Willow Springs, S.A.S. Dump Inc., and KLF Trucking were among 32 those who received 32 contracts of $250,000 each for snow removal on Feb. 3. Other contracts went to Diamond Coring, a contractor at O'Hare Airport under federal investigation that once employed the brother of outgoing 45th Ward Alderman Patrick Levar and contributed to his campaign; MAT Leasing; and Allied Waste Services.

The latter two are owned respectively by trucking magnate Michael Tadin and Fred Bruno Barbara, two men at the center of the Hired Truck Scandal.