{"id":333074,"date":"2010-02-17T17:23:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T22:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef012877b0ef8b970c"},"modified":"2010-02-17T17:23:37","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T22:23:37","slug":"burke-says-aldermen-unlikely-to-allow-inspector-general-to-investigate-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/333074","title":{"rendered":"Burke says aldermen unlikely to allow inspector general to investigate them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Hal Dardick<\/em> at 4:23 p.m.<\/p>\n

The Chicago City Council is unlikely to go along with Mayor Richard Daley’s idea to allow the inspector general to investigate aldermen, but they might come up with an alternative to provide some measure of oversight, influential Ald. Ed Burke said today.<\/p>\n

The longest serving aldermen, Burke, 14th, said he doesn\u2019t think his colleagues will approve Daley\u2019s proposal without changes.<\/p>\n

"I haven\u2019t taken a head count, but from what I\u2019m hearing from comments, I would doubt it,\u201d Burke told WLS-Radio reporter Bill Cameron.\n<\/p>\n

Last week, Daley proposed that the current inspector general, who he appoints with City Council approval, be given the right to probe aldermen and their staffs. It was part of a broader plan to transfer the monitoring of City Hall hiring, promotions and firing from the beleaguered head of compliance to the inspector general.
<\/br>
<\/br>Aldermen might be more open to oversight by an inspector general if that person is chosen by and reports to the council, Burke said. He noted that two decades ago aldermen rejected giving the inspector general the right to probe them when Daley created the post.
<\/br>
<\/br>\u201cAs you know, in the past, the councils have not looked favorably on giving the executive branch so much authority over the legislative branch,\u201d Burke said. \u201cIn many people\u2019s opinions, it is a technique that would dilute the traditional separation of powers that\u2019s the foundation of government in America.
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<\/br>\u201cMany legislative bodies around the nation, including the Illinois General Assembly, have their own system of inspector general, which reports to the legislative branch, not the executive branch. So I think people are going to look at this and see what might be forged to represent a compromise to what the concerns of many members of the City Council are and the concerns of the mayor are.\u201d
<\/br>
<\/br>Burke said he expects Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), chairman of the Rules and Ethics Committee, to \u201chave some meetings to allow the corporation counsel to explain exactly what the Law Department has in mind.\u201d
<\/br>
<\/br>Mell, who last week told the Tribune he would hold hearings on the issue, could not be reached for comment today.
<\/br>
<\/br>Burke, who is chairman of the Finance Committee, said he had yet to take a stance on whether aldermen should name their own inspector general.
<\/br>
<\/br>\u201cI\u2019m suggesting that some people have raised that issue,\u201d he said. \u201cWould it come to that? I don\u2019t know. But I think that an inspector general that investigates a legislative branch that reports to the executive branch can create a clear problem in the minds of many members of the City Council.\u201d
<\/br>
<\/br>Two ordinances proposed last year by aldermen that went nowhere offered other approaches.
<\/br>
<\/br>In one, proposed by independent Ald. Joe Moore (49th), the mayor would choose future inspectors general from recommendations by a committee that would include prosecutors, judges and outside watchdog group leaders would recommend potential inspector general appointments to the mayor.
<\/br>
<\/br>In another \u2014 proposed by Ald. Patrick O\u2019Connor (40th), who is Daley\u2019s unofficial flood leader \u2014 that a review board picked by the mayor and aldermen would make recommendations to the mayor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Hal Dardick at 4:23 p.m. The Chicago City Council is unlikely to go along with Mayor Richard Daley’s idea to allow the inspector general to investigate aldermen, but they might come up with an alternative to provide some measure of oversight, influential Ald. Ed Burke said today. The longest serving aldermen, Burke, 14th, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-333074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}