Stripping Chicago Spending, Bare Down
May 15, 2012 § Leave a Comment
“What do a Chicago strip club
and the President’s campaign fund have in common?”
ANSWER: BOTH were paid- with public funds- as “VENDORS” to the City of Chicago.
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Yesterday, OpenTheBooks.com upgraded it’s transparency portal to include the City of Chicago checkbook from 2002-2011.
It contains $74 billion in vendor payments. Last year 69,800 entities received checks.
Here’s what I found while scanning the data…
The City of Chicago approved checks to both The Admiral Theatre Inc, a Chicago strip club, and Obama For America, the president’s campaign organization. According to data received, both share the same “vendor code.” Yet, neither organization exists in Chicago’s current transparency portal: click here and here.
The Admiral Theatre strip club received $5,197.78 in City of Chicago checks. Sixteen checks range from $1.20 to $1,900. A buck twenty?
See a database of City payments to The Admiral here.
The check to Obama for America raises more questions. The campaign received a $1,000 check on August 28th, 2007. For some reason, theydidn’t disclose this to the Federal Election Commission: click here, and Open Secrets- here.
Click here for my Freedom of Information Act Request seeking more information. See the detailed accounting data surrounding the check: vendor code, transaction id, PO#, fund, department, amount, check number, and date.
Surely, the City will have some sort of explanation. Because, public funds used for campaign purposes violates federal and state law. And, we know that no Illinois or city worker would ever violate those laws, right?
The City has five days to respond to our request for additional information. I can barely wait for the naked truth.
You can search for yourself at www.openthebooks.com
Sincerely,
ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI
Chairman | For The Good of Illinois PAC
