Dennis Sadowski`s official sendoff had a certain morbid flair.
The city sent a car for him Wednesday afternoon, delivering the 18-year city employee to City Hall from his office two blocks away. City lawyers informed him of his limited choices. He resigned.
While Sadowski went out with style, Louis Koncza went without a fight-and with less of an air of formality.
Still, the phone call he received had the ring of finality. A mayoral aide told Koncza ”it might be good if I resign,” he said. Koncza was close to retirement anyway. He didn`t offer any resistance.
Jim McTigue likely won`t go quietly. He said he will fight Mayor Richard Daley`s effort to fire him.
Daley`s internal inquiry into responsibility for the tunnel breach that flooded the Loop had frayed nerves for more than a week. Before Wednesday, only John LaPlante, acting transportation commissioner, had lost his job.
On Wednesday, Chicago`s underground flood washed away more careers. Koncza and Sadowski resigned, and the city announced it was seeking the dismissal of two employees, including McTigue. Three other city workers were slated for 29-day suspensions without pay.
In the Transportation Department offices on the fourth floor of City Hall, where six of the seven workers were based, whispers and fear filled the corridors prior to Daley`s announcement.
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But for Koncza, there was little melodrama.
Koncza, who had worked for the city for 25 years and was chief bridge engineer in the Department of Transportation, was not surprised to receive the call.
”I said, `Yes, it doesn`t make that much difference to me,` ” said Koncza, who earned a salary of $76,920 a year and was planning to retire in July.
He was dismissed, Daley said in announcing the City Hall purge, because he knew of the damage in the tunnel March 25 but did not act quickly enough to repair it.
Koncza, though, said it is not at all clear what else he could have done. He had written a memo April 2 warning that repairs needed to be done quickly or the city faced the ”danger of of flooding out the entire freight-tunnel system.”
Koncza said he could have ”pounded and shouted” but that there was no way for him to have known the tunnel was in imminent danger of rupturing.
”I knew this had to be done as soon as possible, but at the same time, it was already probably like this for six months,” he said.
”If we had another two weeks, it would have been closed off and nobody would have known about it.”
Koncza turned 70 on April 13, the day of the flood.
He said he basically agreed with Daley`s statement that the memo did not relieve him of responsibility.
McTigue was not as willing to accept his fate. Though he would not elaborate, he said that he planned to fight dismissal.
He apparently was the first city employee to learn of the damage in the tunnel near the Kinzie Street bridge. His job in the Department of General Services was to guide businesses through the tunnel system, which is used as a conduit for cables and utility lines.
McTigue told the Department of Transportation about the tunnel problem, but the mayor said he also caused ”unnecessary delays” in examining the site and waited a week to pick up photos of the damage.
The photo delay may, for a long time to come, cause McTigue to be linked unflatteringly with Osco Drugs, the store that developed the negatives that might have prevented the flooding.
Sadowski`s legacy, though, may be that of a city worker so easily deterred from his duty that he failed to carry out inspections because he couldn`t find a place to park. At least that`s the way the city is depicting his role in the bureaucratic foulup.
An assistant project director paid $59,004 a year, Sadowski was the supervising engineer of the project to replace pilings at five bridges, including the Kinzie site, last summer. He only inspected one of the locations, the Cermak Road bridge, according to the city, because there was no parking at the other locations.
Sadowski knew of the tunnel damage March 18 but did not respond, Daley said. During early April, when bids were being sought for the tunnel-repair project, he failed to tell LaPlante that the job demanded immediate action, according to the city.
Sadowski learned of his firing at about 1 p.m. when two representatives of the city`s corporation counsel office escorted him from his desk in the Bureau of Bridges at 320 N. Clark St. and into a black city sedan in front of the building.
At City Hall, Sadowski was taken to the corporation counsel`s office and told he was out of a job. He returned to his desk, cleaned it out, and headed home.
”I really can`t make a statement about all of this,” Sadowski said of the city`s charges.
In addition to McTigue, the city is trying to fire Frank Ociepka, the project manager for the piling project. He worked directly with the contractor to ensure the work was done according to the contract.
Ociepka, 41, is paid $61,668 and has been a city employee for 18 years.
The three employees facing suspensions are:
– Stephen Kent, 45, an assistant chief engineer. He has worked for the city for 23 years and is paid $66,060 a year. Kent also knew of the tunnel problem March 18, the city said, and delayed notifying his supervisor.
– Theodore Maynard, 53, chief soils engineer. He has worked for the city for 28 years and is paid $66,060. Maynard learned of the problem March 18, the city said, and failed to ”convey the urgency of the problem” to Koncza and LaPlante. He also failed to follow up on the matter, the city said.
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– James Bolster, 29, an engineer technician. He has worked for the city for 10 years and is paid $29,448. Along with Sadowski, he did not make a thorough inspection of the pilings, the city said.
Maynard, Kent and Ociepka could not be reached for comment. Bolster declined to comment.