ANOTHER UNION MOBSTER FROM CHICAGO'S TRANSIT AUTHORITY RESIGNS AMID SCANDAL

ANOTHER UNION MOBSTER FROM CHICAGO'S TRANSIT AUTHORITY RESIGNS AMID SCANDAL

July 31, 2013. Crain's Chicago, By Greg Heinz

After a series of financial scandals, you'd think that the leaders of the Chicago area's public transit agencies would be eager to clean house and avoid more bad publicity.

I mean, the papers have been filled all summer with stories about how Metra's ex-CEO and executive director, Alex Clifford, received a $718,000 "departure settlement" after squawking about alleged pressure to hire and promote pals of House Speaker Michael Madigan and other top pols. Other stories have centered on how Metra Chairman Brad O'Halloran was paid both for that job and for working as a village trustee, legally a no-no. Stories like these would make most agencies scour themselves of every piece of dirt.

Not in Chicago, though.

Today's transit story is about how a politically influential member of the Regional Transportation Authority board was allowed to hold that post and keep drawing his pay and benefits more than a half-year after being ordered to return a $91,000 state social services grant, a grant that the state says was frittered away without meeting even basic financial controls.

The board member is the Rev. Tyrone Crider, pastor of Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Chicago's Beverly neighborhood.

Actually, I should say former board member. Mr. Crider resigned from the RTA board this morning, about 24 hours after I began asking Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle's office why she had allowed him to remain even after his term expired, and even though the legal judgment against him was handed down more than a six months ago.

Here's the story:

Mr. Crider, who political insiders say can be quite helpful on the South Side and southern suburbs, was named to the board in 2008 by then-County Board President Todd Stroger. His term expired in March of this year, but he remained on the board because Ms. Preckwinkle did not name a successor.

Mr. Crider, who gets $25,000 a year for the RTA job plus health insurance and pension benefits, promptly made some news, attracting the attention of the Better Government Association, which reported that he had used his transit ties to secure $60,000 in ads for a newsletter he publishes for church-goers.

That matter eventually blew over. But around the same time, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office was getting ready to sue him in connection with a $91,000 grant he had received, doing business as the Pastors Network, from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

According to the suit, which was filed in 2011 (and which you can browse at the end of this post), the money was supposed to go "to encourage middle school and high school students to continue in and graduate from high school and to enroll in college or university."

But Mr. Crider "failed to comply with the terms and conditions of the grant," the complaint states. Among other things, he "failed to supply adequate financial and programmatic records," failed to submit an audit, "failed to satisfy the scope of work prescribed in the grant agreement" and — my favorite —"engaged in the expenditure of grant funds contrary to the express and implied terms of the grant agreement."

Neither DCEO nor Ms. Madigan's office is saying whether Mr. Crider misspent the money, or just was a lousy bookkeeper. In fact, the records were so bad that they may not know for sure.

Anyhow, in a judgment order issued on Jan. 11 — also below for your perusal — Judge Sanjay Tailor issued summary judgment against Mr. Crider, who had not even responded in court to the motion. Collection efforts now are underway to get the $91,000 back for taxpayers.

The January court order should have been a bright light, certainly to Ms. Preckwinkle. But instead of asking him to step down, or replacing him when his term was up on March 31, Ms. Preckwinkle let him continue to serve under a provision of law that allows RTA commissioners to remain at work until they are replaced.

That was the situation when I emailed the president's spokeswoman yesterday, asking why, in view of the Metra mess, she was allowing Mr. Crider to serve on a board that regulates Metra.

Mr. Crider didn't return my call. But overnight, something happened. Ms. Preckwinkle, I'm told, called Mr. Crider and told him he would have to go. RTA officials began putting on their own pressure. And around 11 a.m. today, the RTA released a statement for Mr. Crider, announcing his resignation.

In it, he says: "I have a tremendous amount of respect for the RTA and its mission. I am also personally proud of my years of service with the RTA. In the interest of not distracting from that important work, I am resigning my position as an RTA board member effective immediately."

"Not distracting." Isn't that a nice phrase.

Ms. Preckwinkle, meanwhile, seems rather sad to see him go.

"I appreciate Rev. Crider's service to the board. I accept his decision to resign," she said in a statement. "I have known Rev. Crider for a long time and have seen firsthand his commitment to the community. I'm confident he will do good work in the future."

There's the true reform spirit!

12:45 p.m. update:

State Rep. Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, who has emerged as one of the more vigorous critics of how area transit agencies are run, will not be sad to see Mr. Crider go.

“This is a classic case of the fox watching the henhouse,” he told me yesterday, before Mr. Crider stepped down. “RTA and Metra are a repository of patronage. Cronyism and political hacks profit under this situation, because their patrons protect them.”

Meanwhile, at an unrelated news conference this morning, GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill Brady, a state senator from Bloomington, proposed legislation to fire Metra's current board, limit its chairman to a two-year term and provide greater scrutiny over future appointees. Specifically, all appointees would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority of the appropriate city council or county board, rather than merely by an individual, such as a county board chairman.

Mr. Brady's bill also would require immediate disclosure of any requests for jobs and other items of value made to a board member of Metra, the Chicago Transit Authority or the Regional Transportation Authority by an agency outsider. Any such request would have to be reported to the appropriate inspector general.

“We're not trying to stifle legitimate communication with the boards, but to curb what might be perceived as undue outside influence,” Mr. Brady said.

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