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Ethics board recommends end to decades-old ‘unwritten’ practice after OIG report on mayor’s acceptance of expensive gifts
Mayor Brandon Johnson presides over a City Council meeting Dec. 16, 2024. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office failed to make a record of gifts the office has accepted publicly available and denied the Chicago Office of the Inspector General (OIG) access to a “gift room” where items such as luxury handbags and nice shoes were being stored, the OIG alleged in an advisory issued Wednesday.
As a result, the OIG and Board of Ethics have advised the mayor’s office to no longer follow an “unwritten agreement” with the ethics board that has allowed the mayor’s office to skirt government transparency rules for decades.
Asked about the report Wednesday, the mayor told reporters the advisory mischaracterized his office’s conduct, insisted he had nothing to hide and promised that anyone who wants to view the gift log is welcome to do so.
“It is perhaps more important than ever that Chicagoans can trust their City government, and for decades we have given people no reason at all to trust what goes on in the dark,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said in issuing the advisory. “These gifts are, by definition, City property; if they are squirreled away and hidden from view, people are only left to assume the worst about how they are being handled. If we do not govern responsibly on the small things, we cannot ask people to trust the government on the big ones.”
“These are gifts that are gifts to the city,” Johnson said. “If people want to access them, they can talk to the mayor's office … communications team.”
The city’s Governmental Ethics Ordinance (GEO) disallows city employees and officials from accepting gifts from a single source that have a value of more than $50 annually, but it carves out an exception for gifts accepted “on behalf of the city,” provided that “any person receiving the gift on the City's behalf shall promptly report to the [ethics board] and to the Comptroller, who shall add such gift to an inventory of the City's property.”
But when it comes to the mayor’s office, the Board of Ethics has had an unwritten agreement across multiple mayoral administrations dating back to former Mayor Eugene Sawyer in 1989 that the mayor’s office “may keep a publicly available log of gifts instead of making statutorily required gift disclosures” to the Board of Ethics.
The GEO also allows city officials and employees to accept compensated travel, lodging, food, entertainment and other accommodations “related to a public or governmental educational purpose” or from sponsors of “meetings, appearances or public events or ceremonies related to official City business.” In those cases, the ethics board must approve the acceptance of the compensation ahead of time, and it must be reported to the board within 10 days of acceptance.
The ethics board has also allowed this compensation to be kept in the public log instead of reported to the board.
However, when the OIG covertly visited the fifth floor last June in an attempt to view the log, it was denied access and told to file a public records request instead, according to its report. The OIG covertly filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in July for gifts and compensated accommodations from a timeframe that includes both the Johnson and former Mayor Lori Lightfoot administrations, but the mayor’s office failed to respond to it. The office also filed a FOIA request with the comptroller asking for a list of gifts added to the city’s inventory, but the comptroller had no responsive records.
Only when the OIG sent a “compelled document request” to the mayor’s office did it receive the information in the form of a spreadsheet that listed each gift, date of receipt, the source and where it was stored. Some of the gifts were stored in the gift room and others were stored in a room that “OIG believes to be the Mayor’s private office.”
Gifts accepted by Johnson on behalf of the city included Hugo Boss cufflinks, a personalized Mont Blanc pen, a 2023 U.S. National Soccer Team jersey, a Gucci tote bag, a Givenchy bag, a red Kate Spade handbag, size-14 men’s Carrucci shoes and more, according to the report. Those were all stored in the gift room.
Others, such as a bottle of Uncle Nearest 1856 Premium Aged Whiskey from the Lightfoot era and a Superare “ONE OF ONE” t-shirt gifted last year, are stored in the mayor’s private office, according to the advisory. Other gifts had no listed storage location, including 75 percent of Lightfoot-era gifts and 12 percent of Johnson-era gifts.
Additionally, “almost 70 [percent] of the 380 logged gifts received from February 2, 2022 to March 20, 2024, do not list the identity of the gift giver,” according to the OIG.
According to the OIG, the soccer jersey was given by a representative of Nike, and Apple AirPods, a tote bag and a notepad were given to Johnson by an executive with the U.S. Conference of Mayors. But the Gucci, Givenchy and Kate Spade bags, Carrucci shoes, Hugo Boss cufflinks and Mont Blanc pen all fail to identify the giver.
“When gifts are changing hands — perhaps literally — in a windowless room in City Hall, there is no opportunity for oversight and public scrutiny of the propriety of such gifts, the identities or intentions of the gift-givers, or what it means for gifts like whiskey, jewelry, handbags, and size 14 men’s shoes to be accepted ‘on behalf of the City,’” Witzburg said in a statement.
Witzburg told The Daily Line that the gift policy exceptions likely exist to allow for the city to accept public art donations, for the mayor or another city representative to accept a ceremonial gift from a visiting delegation or for similar situations.
“It is a little hard to get one’s head around what it might mean to accept a pair of size-14 men’s shoes on behalf of the city,” she said.
“These gifts look very personal,” said Bryan Zarou, vice president of policy for the Better Government Association. “These are not gifts on behalf of the city when you’re receiving cufflinks … or shoes.”
“The fact that the mayor even accepted these to begin with is highly inappropriate,” Zarou added.
Johnson said at an unrelated press conference Wednesday that he’s unfamiliar with the gift room mentioned in the report, but he acknowledged being gifted small items such as t-shirts and rubber bracelets at events. He also denied that the inspector was prohibited from accessing records.
“I don't want people to think that there's some room in the city government where there's just a wall full of belts and socks and shoes and fancy hats,” Johnson said.
OIG staff attempted to conduct an unannounced inspection of the gift room in November but were told by mayoral staff, following the recommendation of the corporation counsel, that the OIG was not permitted to inspect the premises. After further conversations, the law department told the OIG it must make an appointment, Witzburg said.
Asked about the mayor’s comments about the existence of the room, she noted that’s the language that came from his own office and that “if there’s no gift room, boy we have another set of problems.”
Zarou said it was “infuriating but not surprising” that the mayor’s office allegedly didn’t cooperate with the OIG. He said it follows a pattern of poor transparency for the Johnson era.
While OIG writes in its advisory that city officials and employees must cooperate with OIG inquiries, the mayor’s office wrote in its response to the OIG that gifts only need to be made available by statute “as soon as practicable” and that an unannounced visit doesn’t fall under this standard.
“There is a clear process that people have to go through in order to be able to access this particular log. Again, the characterization that has been reported on is inaccurate,” Johnson said Wednesday. “Nobody’s above the law. There’s a clear process.”
Witzburg told The Daily Line that “immediate access” to the room “was absolutely practicable here.” She said only allowing inspections by appointment doesn’t allow for accountability.
In response to the OIG’s findings, the Board of Ethics recommended that going forward, the mayor’s office follow the letter of the law when it comes to the GEO and to stop operating under the unwritten agreement when it comes to gifts and paid-for travel and event accommodations. It also recommended the mayor’s office keep all of the gifts it receives within the office or City Hall and be accessible for public viewing. The mayor’s office wrote to the OIG that it would follow the board’s guidance.
Zarou wouldn’t comment on if he thought the board was irresponsible to allow mayors to skirt the GEO for decades, but he said in light of the OIG’s findings, changes may be warranted.
“Given the information that we have today we might have to go back and maybe draft new legislation to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again,” Zarou said.
As for whether the mayor’s office should go beyond the OIG’s recommendations, Witzburg said that will be the mayor’s decision but added it wouldn’t hurt.
“The city of Chicago operates at a tremendous deficit of legitimacy with its residents,” Witzburg said. “The mayor’s office ought to take every opportunity to pay down that deficit.”
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Gino Palomino commented 2025-02-07 14:53:44 -0600Gifts are grifts