Daley appoints Maldonado as 26th Ward alderman

Daley appoints Maldonado as 26th Ward alderman
BY FRAN SPIELMAN
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
July 27, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/1687024,daley-appoints-maldonado-alderman-072709.article


Thirty-two times in the last 20 years, Mayor Daley has appointed aldermen to fill City Council vacancies.

Unless the outgoing alderman was convicted and headed off to prison, the mayor followed the departing alderman’s recommendation on a successor.

Today, Daley broke the mold — by appointing 57-year-old Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado to replace Billy Ocasio as 26th Ward alderman.

Ocasio initially urged Daley to appoint the Rev. Wilfredo De Jesus, whose outspoken views on homosexuality stirred opposition from gay activists.

When De Jesus turned out to be ineligible because he has not lived in the Near Northwest Side 26th Ward for one year, Ocasio recommended his wife, Veronica.

“It’s not, ‘Why not his wife?’ Why did I pick Roberto Maldonado? That is the question. And I picked him because of experience, his commitment, his working with people, his private sector [background] as well as public sector. It’s a combination,” Daley told a City Hall news conference.

Pointing to Maldonado’s role in founding the first Hispanic-owned mortgage brokerage firm in the Midwest, Daley said, “In the Puerto Rican community, we forget there’s many, many entrepreneurs, professional people. There are all types of small businesses. … There’s a large entrepreneurship in that community that people don’t realize.”

Although Todd Stroger and Bill Beavers moved from the City Council to the County Board in recent years, Maldonado said he relishes the move in the other direction, which comes with a $25,556 pay raise.

“I have served 15 years as a county commissioner, and I’m looking for a new political challenge,” Maldonado said.

“As committeeman of the 26th ward for almost ten years now, I’m looking forward to really focus on city services, reaching out, being completely accessible to all of our constituents and [looking] for great economic development initiatives. We have a lot of space to grow in that area.”

Ocasio did not return repeated phone calls. He resigned in May to become a $120,000-a-year senior adviser to Gov. Quinn on social justice issues.

Sources said Daley was not about to wear the jacket for continuing the Chicago tradition of hand-me-down politics — especially not for Billy Ocasio, who emerged as the mayor’s most outspoken City Council critic.

Billy Ocasio cast the lone vote against Daley’s 2009 budget while ranting against a mayor he claimed, “believes everything and everyone is expendable.” He also emptied a piggybank full of quarters onto his desk to protest a 75-year, $1.2 billion parking meter lease tied to steep increases in meter rates.

Veronica Ocasio “probably would have followed in her husband’s —and [former Ald.] Luis [Gutierrez] footsteps and beat the crap out of the mayor,” said a source who asked to remain anonymous.

Maldonado opposed Stroger’s controversial sales tax increase from the beginning and last week was one of 14 aldermen to cut it in half. Asked how his departure would impact attempts to override Stroger’s veto of the repeal, Maldonado said, “I hope that it doesn’t. ... I hope we will have even more members in favor of the repeal.”

Maldonado came here from Puerto Rico at the age of 27 to study at Loyola University while working as a psychologist in the Chicago Public Schools. But, he is no stranger to controversy.

In 2005, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Maldonado’s top aides maintained a secret “clout list” with the names of 100 people in line for government jobs and promotions as payback for political work they had done.

Maldonado admitted he knew many of the people on the list and that some had been heavily involved in his 26th Ward Regular Democratic Organization. But, he insisted that he never saw the list until the Sun-Times showed it to him.

At around that same time, Maldonado’s records were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury probing medical supply giant Siemens. The company was subsequently accused of lying to the FBI and a federal judge to cover up a scheme in which Siemens paid a minority business to be its phony partner on a $49 million Cook County contract.

Siemens and Faustech gave Maldonado $3,000 in campaign contributions before the bids were submitted. Maldonado also received thousands in contributions from convicted businessman Tony Rezko, a former fund-raiser and chief adviser to indicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.