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Saturday, April 20, 2024
City Hall Politics

Feds say city employee was working the red-light district

By  Mark Brown
   
SHARE Feds say city employee was working the red-light district

Just when one might be tempted to think we surely have plumbed the depths of the venality of Chicago politics, along comes the case of John Bills and the city’s red-light camera contract to prove us wrong.

Federal authorities say Bills, a former city payroller who moonlighted as a White Sox clubhouse attendant and the secret angel of Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to steer the camera deal to Redflex.

Redflex’s bribe-paying consultant allegedly even threw in an Arizona condominium, the feds say in their complaint. This no doubt made it that much more convenient for Bills — a longtime member of House Speaker Mike Madigan’s 13th Ward political army — to follow Sox spring training games instead of tending to his city duties.

Is it any wonder that nearly every major Democratic politician in this state currently finds himself or herself on the hot seat with voters, including those who have absolutely nothing to do with this deal?

When it’s shown that stuff like this is still going on, nobody trusts anyone in authority. And who can blame them?

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