A confidential report on corruption in Chicago`s government portrays former mayoral adviser Clarence McClain as a major behind-the-scenes player in the Washington administration, with easy access to top officials and internal city documents.
At the same time, however, the report says that members of the mayor`s inner administrative circle were so worried that McClain`s influence would become public knowledge that they failed to take aggressive steps upon learning that he may have made questionable payments to John E. Adams, the former deputy revenue director.
The final version of the report, written by former U.S. Atty. Thomas Sullivan, depicts an administration completely unprepared for what happened when a group of free-spending bill-collection agencies, including one represented by McClain, came to town seeking contracts that would help the city collect millions of dollars in badly needed revenue.
”The city had no procedure or standards for seeking outside collection agencies,” Sullivan concluded in the report, ”and political connections, rather than merit, often played a role in the selection process.”
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Adams, assigned to help pick companies to collect overdue water bills and parking tickets, solicited campaign contributions from six collection agencies, and accepted $10,000 from Systematic Recovery Service Inc., whose activities are the focus of a federal investigation, Sullivan concluded.
Adams` boss, former Revenue Director Charles Sawyer, accepted a political contribution from Systematic Recovery on behalf of his brother, Ald. Eugene Sawyer (6th). Another collection agency, Datacom Systems Corp., which was competing against Systematic Recovery, told Sullivan that it gave Sawyer tickets to entertainment events and treated the revenue director and other officials to lunch at least 27 times.
Sullivan`s report also says that City Treasurer Cecil Partee backed The Sennet Group Inc., another collection agency, for a city contract and that the firm agreed to hire Partee to be its representative if it won contracts in other cities. Partee could not be reached for comment, but the report quotes him acknowledging that he ”may have called city officials on behalf of Sennet.”
And the report quotes Sawyer as saying that the administration cut a deal in which opposition alderman would back Datacom and Systematic Recovery if the administration would throw support behind two other firms.
In almost painstaking detail, the report, a copy of which was obtained Thursday by The Tribune, dissects allegations that Systematic Recovery and other collection agencies were able to buy influence in the Washington administration.
Sullivan was hired by the mayor after the disclosure that Systematic Recovery`s marketing representative here, Michael Raymond, was secretly an FBI informant who tape-recorded his dealings with politicians in Chicago and New York.
In general, Sullivan`s findings mirror news reports last December, January and February about Raymond`s activities. For example, the payments to Adams and Sawyer were disclosed early this year, and McClain`s involvement with Systematic Recovery has also been widely reported.
Sullivan`s inquiry, though it lacked subpoena power, had access to some of the city`s highest-ranking officials, including Washington, and went beyond the facts to draw conclusions about how the administration works.
For example, describing how Datacom made campaign contributions and sought influential subcontractors in its efforts to win a lucrative city contract, Sullivan and his assistants wrote: ”The Datacom contract, its solicitation, award and administration, are surrounded by an aura of political deal-making. While none of this activity may have been illegal, it created an appearance of impropriety.”
And in discussing how top city officials seemed to heed McClain`s advice, even though he had earlier resigned in disgrace, Sullivan concludes:
”The city officials who permitted McClain`s influence to pervade the process conducted themselves in a way which fostered McClain`s reputation as an `influence peddler.` ”
The report indicates that Sullivan and his assistants won the cooperation of a remarkable number of McClain`s associates, including Andrew Cunningham, a former business partner; Lee Miller, a businessman who has worked in McClain political campaigns; and Edward Phillips, described in the report as an ex-accountant for McClain.
From these interviews and others, Sullivan concluded that McClain worked closely with Systematic Recovery and tried to help the company win a share of a lucrative city contract.
Once Datacom was picked for the contract, McClain set out to have it split up so that Systematic Recovery could win a share, the report asserted.
”Although Datacom received the parking ticket collection contract, McClain played a prominent role in trying to obtain a role for SRS, and city officials apparently delayed finalizing the contract at McClain`s request,”
the report said. ”Had the process for awarding the contract been governed by systematic procedures and objective criteria, McClain`s inteference with that process might have been prevented.”
According to the report and previous news reports, McClain convinced top administration officials that they should delay awarding the contract to Datacom until conclusion of a consultant study of city parking collections. McClain and Raymond were the secret sponsors of that study, sources familiar with the case have said.
Wrote Sullivan: ”Thus SRS, a New York-based company with no prior experience with the City of Chicago, significantly participated in the parking ticket contract process after Datacom had been selected for that contract. This appears to be attributable in substantial part to McClain`s influence.” One example of McClain`s influence is that he was also able to set up a meeting between the consultants who wrote the parking study–David Hammond and Charles Knox–and Washington. The four of them discussed parking ticket collections, the mayor told Sullivan.
In addition, Adams apparently gave McClain some internal city documents that helped Systematic Recovery keep abreast of the contracting process, Sullivan said in the report.
The report indicates that the mayor was not always aware of what his top aides were doing. For example, in December, 1985, when Washington`s chief of staff, Ernest Barefield, told the mayor about the allegations involving Adams, the mayor said he had thought that Adams, who held an influential and visible post, had been fired months before.
The report sheds new light on the activities of Melvin DuBrock, an assistant commissioner of Streets and Sanitation who reportedly had several meetings with Raymond. Sullivan`s conclusions about DuBrock were limited because he was fired for refusing to cooperate with the inquiry. But he says that DuBrock touted Systematic Recovery and criticized Datacom in meetings with people who had influence over city contracts.
Sullivan said he was unable to find any evidence of whether Carmen E. Aiello, a former deputy superintendent in the city`s Water Department, had backed Systematic Recovery. Aiello resigned his City Hall post rather than cooperate with the inquiry.
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Sullivan also investigated circumstances surrounding several meetings Ald. Jesus Garcia (22d) had with Raymond while Garcia was a deputy water commissioner. Essentially, the report concluded that Garcia would have had no influence over collection contracts and that there was no evidence he had done anything wrong.
Sullivan, who lamented that the city council refused to grant him subpoena power, said in the document that he held public officials to a high standard, mainly because the report focused on some of the highest-ranking people in City Hall.
Wrote Sullivan in the introduction to the report: ”Such persons, to whom the citizens of Chicago entrust their tax dollars, safety and well-being, are required by law to adhere to a high standard of conduct and to an unalterable commitment to do what is best for the citizens they serve.”