Former mayoral challenger Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) on Wednesday asked Chicago’s Board of Ethics and inspector general to investigate Mayor Lori Lightfoot for accepting a $25,000 contribution from the owner of the Chicago Fire two months after she muscled through a zoning change allowing the soccer club to build an $80 million training center on Chicago Housing Authority land.
In a letter to IG Deborah Witzburg and Ethics Board Executive Director Steve Berlin, Lopez, who dropped his mayoral bid last week, said he believes the contribution from billionaire Joe Mansueto, founder and majority owner of Morningstar Inc., “represents a gross & familiar abuse of power and, at minimum, a potential violation” of the city’s ethics ordinance.
The letter specifically highlights the section of the ethics ordinance that prohibits a city official or candidate for office from accepting “anything of value, including but not limited to, a gift, favor or promise of future … employment based upon any mutual understanding, either explicit or implicit, that the votes, official actions, decisions or judgments of any official candidate for city office or city contractor concerning business of the city would be influenced thereby.
“My concerns are just the perception of the impropriety of deals being made — public land being given away meant for housing — and the result being less than altruistic. This seems very much like typical Chicago way, pay-to-play politics that the mayor has railed against and ran against when she was elected,” Lopez told the Chicago Sun-Times.Sign up for NBC Chicago newsletters.
“For a $25,000 donation to come less than two months after receiving 26 acres of public land is something that all of us deserve clarity on. … We need to know if this was a quid pro quo involving … the use of CHA land to build this Chicago Fire training facility. The fact that the mayor had to bring back the Zoning Committee to undo a previous vote just so she could push it forward tells you how much pressure was put to make this deal go through. Now, we know why.
Christina Freundlich, a spokesperson for the Lightfoot campaign, could not be reached for comment. Neither could a Morningstar spokesperson who represents Mansueto. — shot down in committee one day before — that allows the Fire to build an $80 million training center on CHA land on the Near West side formerly occupied by ABLA Homes.
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