Chicago Tribune: Chief zoning official fired in condo probe


From Nancy Levy comes this article on further carnage in the Daley administration. Daley is being treated like a huge success by the national press and other big city mayors. Somehow the numerous corruption investigations that are going on regarding multiple city departments (with hundreds of millions of dollars involved) doesn't affect their opinion. In this case, a condo project mysteriously got built in an area zoned for manufacturing, and several city officials just coincidentally happen to have had a nice vacation in Brazil with the developer of the condo project. But of course, Daley himself knows nothing about any of these incidents. We know that because he invariably says so.

Mayor Richard Daley's administration fired a high-ranking Zoning Department official Friday, saying he refused to answer questions from city investigators who are probing a controversial condominium project west of the Loop. John Quinn, who received $83,000 a year as chief zoning inspector, was put on paid administrative leave last week pending the investigation into the 44-unit condo development at 373 N. Morgan St...The firing follows the resignations last month of two top Buildings Department officials who faced scrutiny in the same probe. Kimberly Brown, the department's $124,700-a-year first deputy commissioner, resigned after officials learned that she made a vacation trip to Brazil earlier this year with the project's developer, Jerry Cedicci, and his brother.