Office formerly occupied by Faisal Khan leased for $1-a-year

The office once occupied by the City Council’s handpicked, hog-tied and now-former inspector general was unloaded Tuesday — for $1-a-year.

Faisal Khan’s Suite 300 at 740 N. Sedgwick St. will be filled by Chicago Park District’s inspector general Will Fletcher, thanks to a lease approved by the City Council’s Housing Committee that will expire in 2022.

That’s tantamount to giving away the space. But, not according to Housing Committee Chairman Joe Moore (49th), one of Khan’s earliest targets and harshest critics.

Moore considers it $1-a-year more than Chicago taxpayers got out of Faisal Khan during the legislative inspector general’s tumultuous four-year tenure.

“It’s nice to see the office finally being put to productive use. Obviously, it wasn’t in his tenure. He had few, if any, findings of misconduct brought before the Board of Ethics. It was a complete and total waste of city tax dollars,” Moore said.

“I don’t even know who the Park District inspector general is, but I’m sure he’s doing a better job than the previous occupant of the office.”

Moore put zero credence in the report released this week by Project Six, an investigative agency now headed by Faisal Khan.

It claimed that more than $500,000 of the $10 million raised by the City Council’s 50 aldermen during the 2015 election cycle “violated campaign finance laws” and were “potentially illegal” because those donations either exceeded individual and corporate limits or included donations prohibited by law.

“Consider the source. Consider the folks who are funding this outfit he’s working for. It’s being funded by Bruce Rauner’s friends and supporters. We’ll leave it at that,” Moore said Tuesday.

Khan accused six aldermen of receiving more than $25,000 in “potentially illegal” contributions. They were identified as: Proco Joe Moreno (1st); Brian Hopkins (2nd); George Cardenas (12th); Edward Burke (14th); Brendan Reilly (42nd) and Pat O’Connor (40th).

Hopkins was accused of being the biggest offender with $96,781 in “potentially illegal” contributions in 2015.

“My campaign is in full compliance with all disclosure requirements and all contribution limits,” Hopkins said Tuesday.

“In the event that there are any errors, I trust that the proper authorities, which would be the Board of Elections, would notify me and I would take immediate corrective action.”

Khan laughed out loud when told of Moore’s broadside. He later released an emailed statement noting that 39 aldermen had accepted more than $500,000 in “potentially illegal donations in just one year.”

“Rather than respond to the significant evidence of wrongdoing, members of City Council have responded with repeated personal attacks. It is truly sad that any member of City Council would choose to deflect their own professional responsibility instead of acknowledge the problems of the City,” Khan said.

“For years, the City Council has refused to be answerable to any oversight. Chicagoans deserve a City Council that is honest and operates within the law, not aldermen who try to distract from the problems of corruption in the City with personal insults.”

Moore is still on the warpath three years after Khan accused him of using his taxpayer-funded ward office to do political work, firing an employee who blew the whistle on it, and giving the former staffer an $8,709 payment equal to 81 days worth of severance to try to cover it up.

At the time, Moore acknowledged being questioned by the FBI about allegations by a “disgruntled employee” he called “completely false.” But the alderman said that interview occurred only because Khan had contacted the FBI.

At the time, the alderman tried to salvage his reputation as a self-declared champion for ethics reform — by accusing Khan of violating the law in his investigation of him.

Specifically, Moore accused Khan of violating a legal mandate to: get prior approval from the city’s Board of Ethics before launching an investigation or referring matters to law enforcement; keep investigations confidential; and give the subject of an investigation notice of allegations against him.

Last fall, Khan persuaded the FBI to seize and secure his investigative records and closed his office with parting shots at Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a City Council he claimed wasn’t ready for reform.

He argued then that the system was “rigged from Day One” by investigative rules that tied his hands into a pretzel and set up his office for failure.

Three months later, he accused aldermen of proving once again that they “don’t want any oversight” by tying the hands of Inspector General Joe Ferguson, even as they empowered him to investigate the City Council.

Khan lambasted aldermen for cutting off half of the oversight that Ferguson exercises over the rest of city government. That change ruled out program audits that Ferguson routinely conducts to determine whether taxpayers’ money is being wasted.

The $100 million-a-year worker’s compensation program administered by Finance Committee Chairman Edward Burke (14th) escaped Ferguson’s scrutiny. So did the $66 million-a-year program that gives every one of the 50 aldermen $1.32 million to spend on a menu of infrastructure improvements.

The Chicago Sun-Times has reported that Khan was paid nearly $800,000 over his four-year term for what was supposed to be part-time work. And he’s still suing the city for tens of thousands of dollars he claims to be owed.

Khan has maintained that his salary was “the same as any other” city department head minus the sick days, health insurance and pension benefits offered to full-time city employees. He has further argued that his budget was the “lowest of any full-time agency” in city government.