Task Force To Revamp Ethics Ordinance At City Hall
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Several prominent reformers will spend the next four months figuring out ways to end corruption at City Hall.
As WBBM Newsradio's Regine Schlesinger reports, at Mayor Rahm Emanuel's request, the four members of the Ethics Reform Task Force will form a task force to come up with ways to put some teeth into Chicago's Ethics Ordinance – a law the mayor says is vague and ineffective.
LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio's Regine Schlesinger reports
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Cindi Canary, former director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, tells the Chicago Sun-Times this is a more proactive approach than in the past, when the City Hall responded to each new scandal with an apology and a new round of reforms.
This time, she tells the newspaper, the task force will figure out what is working and what is not before there is a crisis.
Canary tells the Sun-Times no topic will be off limits for the task force, from examining the work of what the newspaper calls the "do-nothing" city Board of Ethics, to allowing the city Inspector General to investigate the City Council instead of having a separate inspector general for the legislative body.
The possibility of cutting the City Council in half, from 50 to 25 aldermen, is also sure to "come up," Canary tells the newspaper. Any such move would require a change in state law.
The board includes Canary, former state Senator and Comptroller Dawn Clark Nestch, former federal prosecutor Sergio Acosta, and Ald. Will Burns (4th) .
