CHICAGO: A bribes-for-jobs scandal in the city's sanitation department has implicated key officials, writes PJ Huffstutter in Chicago
Each morning, hungry for breakfast and gossip about the latest scandal, city workers sit crammed along the counter at Marova Grill in the Chicago south side neighbourhood of Bridgeport.
At one end is a trio of employees from the Chicago Park District, where a former director pleaded guilty last autumn to steering contracts worth millions of dollars in exchange for bribes.
At the other end is a pair of workers from the city's sanitation department, where a suit filed by a former truck driver alleges he was fired for refusing to make political donations and do campaign work.
Yet all anyone here could talk about this week was Mayor Richard M Daley.
They murmured about how his former patronage chief and three other city officials were on trial for allegedly securing municipal jobs for people with ties to local political organisations. And they wondered whether the federal investigation might reach all the way to top.
On the surface, the case is simply the latest in an ongoing series of federal inquiries that have resulted in the convictions of dozens of former and current state and city workers.
But here in the city's 11th ward - which has one of the largest percentages of city workers, and is the longtime home base of the Daley family political empire - the investigations cut particularly close.
"Everyone knows everyone, everyone knows the people involved and everyone knows the Daley family," waitress Maureen Dunn said as she refilled coffee mugs. "The headlines are about our neighbours and friends. You can't ignore it, because people are worried."
Federal prosecutors have charged Robert Sorich, who worked in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and three other city employees with manipulating the hiring process to place politically backed candidates into city jobs.
The candidates became building inspectors and truck drivers, gardeners and bricklayers - despite being unqualified or never being interviewed. One job candidate was serving in Iraq when hired.
Such hirings would violate the decree put into place to help eradicate the notorious patronage practices of Daley's father, Mayor Richard J Daley.
All four accused have pleaded not guilty.
Recent events show the glacial pace of trying to change a region where organised crime settled nearly a century ago.
A federal grand jury has been investigating the hiring practices of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich's administration. More than two dozen former and current city workers have been convicted in an investigation into the city's hired truck programme.
The programme, which contracted private vehicles for public works and construction projects, was promoted by City Hall as a way to cut costs. But federal investigators found that many of the trucking companies were being paid millions of dollars to do no work, and city workers were seeking bribes in exchange for securing the contracts.
And last month a federal jury found former Illinois governor George Ryan guilty of trading contracts and political favours for gifts and bribes. The investigation that led to Ryan's conviction also brought about 75 other convictions - including those of more than 30 people who were current or former state employees.
Even the jury that found Ryan guilty sparked a scandal when local media reports revealed that several jurors had lied during jury selection about their own brushes with the law.
Daley, who has had more than a dozen resignations from his cabinet after this and other scandals, has not announced whether he will run for re-election in February.
Prosecutors have declined to comment on whether they believe Daley was involved in the city hiring scheme. Though Daley has been questioned, federal officials have neither implicated nor charged him.
The five-time Democratic mayor has repeatedly said that he was innocent and had no knowledge of the scheme. "I don't play any role in hiring," Daley said. But, like it or not, his name has been repeatedly brought up in the Sorich trial.
- (LA Times-Washington Post service)