Politics & Government

Ethics Committee Chair Asks Public To Report Wrongdoing

Committee reviews Niles' purchasing practices to be sure they're ethical.

Jim Hynes started Tuesday’s Niles Ethics Committee meeting by citing a famous corruption fighter and issuing a plea to village employees and the public: report wrongdoing rather than looking the other way.

While the committee spent much of its meeting reviewing the village's purchasing practices to avoid conflicts of interest, Hynes, who chairs the ethics committee and also sits on the village board, remarked he went to a charitable fundraising dinner recently and sat near Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who has earned a nationwide reputation for prosecuting corruption.

While at the dinner, Hynes learned of a Chicago Sun-Times article which summarized a recent speech of Fitzgerald’s. Fitzgerald had remarked in the City Club of Chicago speech he wished he had a dollar for everyone who came up to him after he had put a wrongdoer away and told him something along the lines of, “Yeah, we always knew that person was corrupt.”

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Earlier:

Fitzgerald said he wanted to smack such people upside the head and tell them that if they knew the person was a crook, they should have reported them.

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Hynes put his own coda on that sentiment, saying “I’m saying this to encourage people, if you think anything is wrong, let us know… Nine out of 10 times there isn’t, it’s a misunderstanding. That’s what we as a board of ethics are for, to sort through these things to try to get an answer.”

In Niles, such comments usually make citizens recall the legacy of Nicholas Blase, the former mayor convicted on mail fraud and tax evasion charges. Blase was released from a federal prison sentence in March after serving about 10 months.

The Ethics Committee, and a new era of attention to the way government operates, started in the wake of that scandal.

After Hynes' call to action, the Ethics Committee plunged into the business of going over the Practice and Procedures Manual for Purchasing line by line. Since purchasing involves money, and the potential for corruption, it's a target for the committee to look at.

"Our function was...to look at potential ethics problems, to make sure (purchasing) procedures make sense from an ethical point of view," Hynes said.

Some of the main points they discussed included the following.

Checks over $1,000

After Michael Siegel, an ethics committee member, pointed out that language was inconsistent—at one point the document said the mayor must review checks over $1,000, while another portion of the document said three or four signatures, including the village’s purchasing agent, were required, they made the language consistent.

Businesses offering corporate discounts to village employees

Hynes said he had a problem with businesses offering corporate discounts to village employees. In the discussion that followed, Village Manager George Van Geem said that before the Dine-In Niles program, which offers 10 percent discounts to Niles residents,  the Howard Street Inn restaurant offered them a discount.

Siegel brainstormed, “What if I’m a big plumber in Niles and I give discounts to village employees.  Does that put smaller plumbers who can’t afford to offer discounts at a disadvantage?  He also posed the question of whether that gave the discount-granting plumber an advantage.

“If they’re offering discounts to other corporate clients, then we’re not getting anything special that other businesses don’t get,” Van Geem observed.

“Also we’d be naïve if we didn’t think cops get free coffee and donuts every time they walk into a Dunkin Donuts.”

Preference to Niles companies?

Hynes read from the manual that in making purchasing decisions, the village will strive to give preference to vendors located in the village, "but will not not pay a significantly higher price for a comparable service or product to a vendor located in Niles".

"That leaves a lot of wiggle room," said Siegel.

"How do you know it’s a comparable product or service?" Gaudio asked.

Van Geem said he couldn't even remember the last time the matter came up, and Hynes decided to drop the subject.

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