Chicago fights corruption's long shadow - again

And a separate scandal involves the city's towing practices, in which unclaimed vehicles were sold for scrap after 15 days. The city made little more than $100 a vehicle, and the company buying the cars was free to sell them for thousands of dollars apiece.

Still, the scandals are, in many ways, fairly ordinary - nothing like the corruption that's part of Chicago's lore. Back then, "it was almost out-and-out thievery," says Richard Ciccone, former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune and author of "Chicago and the American Century." "You had aldermen who were running illicit operations and virtually, in some places, tied in with mobsters."

After World War II, corruption here became less blatant and more white-collar. Certain actions, like getting jobs for friends or family, were done openly. (Former Mayor Richard J. Daley had a well-known diatribe for those who questioned the jobs he got for his sons - they could kiss the mistletoe hanging from his coattails.)

These days, politics here are cleaner, though it's a famously one-party town in which the mayor holds the power. The current allegations, says Mr. Ciccone, are "the same kind of things that go on [in most cities], especially with the big dollars in politics today."

Still, the scandals have been an embarrassment for Mayor Daley, who's repeatedly promised to clean up corruption. He's responded by tightening up the process for choosing contractors, posting available contracts on the Internet, and recertifying women- and minority-owned businesses.

"They'll do whatever Band-Aid work is necessary," says Mr. Rose. I don't think anybody's going to change the system."

Few question Daley himself, although some, like Rose, suggest that people under him may reward Daley's friends and associates - people like James Duff - assuming it will make the mayor happy.

But others say the only reason so many of the mayors' "friends" get business is that so many people purport to be his friend.

"He doesn't need contractors, he doesn't need patronage armies to get elected mayor of the city of Chicago. All he needs to do is run on his record," says David Axelrod, a political consultant who works for Daley. Corruption is "not something you can fully eradicate in any city, and it's not something that happens overnight."

No matter the prospects for change, the hardest transformation may be that of public opinion - Chicagoans' sense of a corruption so deep, it's just part of the city's culture.

Politicians are "still doin' their thing." says Walter Gayles, a retired salesman who's lived here for 40 years. "When they're in [office], everyone affiliated with them is going to get some money."

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